


The Curse That Comes With a Kiss

by talktowater



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Step-Brothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-23 20:55:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talktowater/pseuds/talktowater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Stiles and Derek are the same age and Derek's mom didn't die in the fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will post a few more chapters tonight then updates over the next week or so until complete.

Whether Derek would play lacrosse or not was never a question, or an option, he supposed. His dad had only been a freshman at Stanford when he’d scored the winning goal for the Cardinals at the 1982 Western Collegiate Lacrosse League championship. Lacrosse was in their blood his dad had told him even before he was old enough to hold a stick. It wasn’t until he was twelve that his dad had sat him down on the old leather chair in his office, blowing cigarette smoke in Derek’s face as he leaned back against his large wooden desk and told Derek what else was in their blood.

“You’ll find, over the next few months or years, changes happening to you. You’ll start coming into your gift,” he said without a hint of irony.

“My g-gift…” Derek repeated softly.

His dad nodded, “I was fourteen, but your uncle Peter was much younger, there’s no rhyme or reason to when it happens. Your grandfather was sixteen before he came into his full abilities.”

“How ol-old was Laura?”

His dad sounded put out when he said with a frown, “Laura wasn’t born with the gift.”

“And Mom?”

His dad sighed, “I tried to turn her before we were married but the bite didn’t take. She’s immune to it, a human like Laura.”

“Why do you say that like we-we’re, like we’re not?” Derek said uncomfortably as he skulked back into his chair.

“Jesus Christ Derek, because we’re not human,” his dad scowled, “you’re a lycanthrope, whether you like it or not.”

“You mean w-w-werewolf.”

His dad shook his head, “If you want to be crass.”

For the next six months Derek woke every morning expecting a change, full moons marked out on his calendar just in case, and every day that he woke still feeling human he felt relieved. When he only made the second string of his middle school lacrosse team his dad didn’t bother to hide his disappointment in Derek. He’d heard his parent’s arguing about it in the next room, his mom calling his dad callous and his dad arguing that perhaps if she didn’t mollycoddle him, he wouldn’t be such a failure. Derek was looking up the word mollycoddle when he heard the front door slam and saw out from his top floor window his dad transform into his wolf form and take off to the woods. He’d never seen his dad transform before that night. Derek dropped to the floor as his dad’s form disappeared behind the trees, grabbing the small trashcan next to his desk and throwing up into it, thinking about his inescapable destiny with every heave.

***

“Okay kid if I gotta ask you one more time to sit down I’m gonna stop the bus,” the school bus driver called out angrily from the front of the bus to Stiles who was straddling two of the rear seats trying to balance between them.

Stiles groaned then moved back to standing on just one of the seats, leaning over the back of the seat to talk to Lydia who was sprawled out on the back row of the bus reading a magazine, “What you reading?”

She held it up so he could see and sighed, “Seventeen, ‘how to tell if your crush is crushing you back.’”

 “So what’s the verdict, does Jackson want to have your babies?”

“It says we’re meant to be.”

Stiles laughed, “So, you gonna ask him to the sixth grade dance?”

She shook her head, “Can’t, it’s against the rules. It says here to laugh at his jokes and touch his arm so he knows you’re interested. If you’re too ‘forward’ you’ll scare him away.”

Stiles leaned over grabbing the magazine out of her hand, scanning the article, “This is stupid.”

Lydia laughed, “If you want to borrow my magazine you only have to ask.”

“‘Tips for charming the shy guy, find similar interests,’” he read aloud, ”yeah like that works.”

“Got a shy guy you wanna charm Stiles?” 

He poked his tongue out at her, “Very funny.”

She got a sly look on her face and nodded in the direction of front of the bus to where Derek Hale sat alone, giant headphones wrapped over his ears, staring out the window, “So you just woke up last month and decided you suddenly loved lacrosse so much you were going to join the team?”

Stiles’ mouth dropped and he whispered, “Don’t, someone will hear you.”

“You love him,” she laughed, drawing out every syllable. 

He leaned in closer over the back of the seat, “I’m not like that, okay?”

“Then you won’t need this then.” She shrugged, grabbing the magazine from his hands. Stiles scowled at her, turning away and sitting forward on his seat, determined to ignore her for the rest of the bus ride. She slipped into the seat next to him, throwing her arm around his shoulder, “I’m sorry. I was just teasing.”

“Yeah well don’t.”

“You know, if you were that way, it’d be okay right?”

“I’m not so it doesn’t matter,” he said, focusing on the graffiti on the back of the seat that said, ‘Don’t drink and drive, smoke dope, eat soap and fly home in a bubble.’

She sighed, “He totally stares at you every day in line for the bus.”

Stiles turned to her, studying her eyes for mirth but she was serious, “He does?”

She grinned, “Totally.”

***

Derek didn’t have a lot of friends, or any really, it wasn’t because he didn’t like people more that they didn’t seem to like him. For some reason though Stiles Stilinski hadn’t gotten the memo that Derek was a loser. Despite the fact that Derek could barely find his words around him, for whatever reason, Stiles seemed to actually want to talk to Derek. They’d first become friends, or rather Stiles had first started talking to Derek in sixth grade when Stiles joined the lacrosse team. He spent equal if not more time than Derek on the bench but unlike Derek, Stiles was confident and didn’t seem to care when Jackson laughed at his inability to catch the ball in his net or called him a loser. Stiles was everything Derek wasn’t and he admired him intensely for it.

Derek’s mom had asked him about his new friend when she saw he and Stiles laughing together on the bench at their first game, he hadn’t wanted to disappoint her with the truth which was that Stiles only spoke to him at practice so he’d told her they were friends, not just friends, best friends. It wasn’t a complete lie Derek considered Stiles his best friend but he wasn’t delusional, he was well aware that at best Stiles thought of Derek as an acquaintance; someone to talk to when there was no one better around. The look of relief and pride on his mom’s face when he she found out he finally had a best friend made him feel sick to his stomach. He’d spent the rest of the night hiding out in his room.

The summer between sixth and seventh grade Derek turned thirteen and like every birthday he’d had since kids were too old to be forced to come to his party, it was a family only event. His mom looked sad when she asked why he wasn’t inviting Stiles so he’d told her Stiles was at camp all summer. The guilt of his lie was much better than having to disappoint her with the truth that her only son was a loser who probably couldn’t get people to come to his birthday party even if he’d paid them.

Being shoulder slammed into his locker by Jackson on the first day back of seventh grade was a painful reminder that apart from being an inch taller and having hair where he didn’t before, nothing had changed since sixth grade.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there D-D-D-Derek,” Jackson laughed as he walked away, throwing his arm around Lydia Martin, leaving Derek scrambling on the floor to pick up the books he’d dropped.

“You’re such a douche sometimes,” Derek heard her say as they stopped outside her locker down the hall.

Jackson looked over at Derek with a smirk, “It’s not my fault that some people are just born losers.”

Derek had had years to get used to being humiliated by guys like Jackson on a daily basis, but when he looked up from the ground and saw Stiles standing over him with an uneasy smile on his face he experienced a whole new level of mortification. He was relieved when Stiles opened the locker next to Derek’s and instead of bringing up what he’d just witnessed said, “Guess we’re neighbors now.”

Derek stood, shoving his books into his locker, willing away the red on his face as he nodded. “C-cool.”

“So, uhhh, you have a good vacation? Get up to any trouble?” He grinned, but Derek just shook his head, not trusting his words to come out right. “Yeah me neither, Scott spent like the entire summer with his dad and Lydia basically spent the summer hanging out by Jackson’s pool. Barf, right?”

“You’re not, you’re not friends with J-J-Jackson?”

“Are you kidding me? Give me some credit man. No, I pretty much spent the first half of summer vacation clocking the Alias game and pirating music. And then the second half grounded when my dad found out I’d been pirating music. Don’t ever have a sheriff for your father.”

Derek laughed, and tried to say he’d ‘keep that in mind’ but instead all that came out was a stiff sounding, “Okay.”

Stiles ran his hand along his buzz cut then frowned, “Right. I’m just gonna— the bell— see you later.”

Derek watched dumbly as Stiles shut his locker, and hesitated for a moment, his hand still on the door. Derek took a breath and did what his speech therapist, Debbie, had advised him to do, imagined saying the words before he spoke. Stiles was halfway down the hall before he’d even been able to open his mouth to ask, ‘What did you download?’

It was three weeks of friendly nods in the hall or short hello’s in line for the bus or at their lockers before Derek got up the nerve to try talking to Stiles again. They were standing at their lockers between class when Derek looked over at Stiles and asked, “What did you download?”

 Stiles looked over at him surprised, uttering, “Huh?”

Derek flushed red, of course Stiles hadn’t been replaying their one minute long conversation in his head like Derek had every day. He felt stupid for only planning what to say in reaction to the music question. He hadn’t considered an outcome where Stiles had no idea what he was talking about. He thought of fleeing for a moment, knowing he was working his nerves up to a point where his stutter was an embarrassing inevitability. His foot was twisting to turn when he found the resolve to stay. He took a deep breath and looked Stiles in the eyes, another trick Debbie had encouraged him to try but he’d always been too nervous to actually follow through. “You said you— ” He paused willing the words to come out right, but then Stiles grinned and nodded his head.

“Oh over Summer? Basically every single album on the Pitchfork top 100 of 2006. I pretty much have the best music collection ever now. What have you been listening to?” He leaned forward and tugged on the cord of the headphones that were slung around Derek’s neck, then dropped his hand with a look of shame when the cord fell from Derek’s pocket unattached and hanging on the floor, “Oh my god. I’m sorry.”

Stiles stepped back and grimaced as Derek quickly shoved the cord back into his pocket, “I-I-I—“ Derek started but Stiles shook his head.

“No, my bad, I just assumed… I’m an idiot.”

“You’re n-not,” Derek said to the floor.

Stiles paused a moment and Derek thought he was going to walk away, but instead he took a step into Derek’s space, asking quietly, “You’re always wearing these things, are they ever hooked up?” Derek considered lying for a moment then shook his head, the lie seemed pointless. Stiles nodded in consideration, “Is it so you don’t have to talk to people?”

Derek shrugged, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to talk to people, it’s that they don’t want to talk to me and at least this way I can pretend it’s my choice,’ he wanted to say but what came out was, “it's not, it’s not… It’s b-b-better this way.”

Stiles clapped Derek on the back and laughed, “That’s a good idea, maybe I should bring my headphones to lunch from now on so I don’t have to listen to Jackson talk about his dad’s boat anymore.” 

The next day there was a CD in a paper sleeve lying on top of his books when he opened his locker, there was a messy track-list on the paper and written in permanent marker on the topside of the CD was ‘Better than silence.’ Laura had made fun of him for wanting to borrow her old disc-man when he got home from school that day but then handed it over, telling him he could keep it. Stiles never acknowledged the fact he had given Derek the CD so Derek didn’t ask why and when there was a new CD every Monday in his locker, he figured this was the way Stiles wanted it.

“Derek has a girlfriend,” Laura said with a grin over dinner one night as winter drew near.

His mom beamed, leaning forward on her elbows, “Derek, that’s wonderful. Do I know her?”

Derek shot Laura a dirty look and shook his head, “I don’t have a girlfriend, Laura’s just being a b-b— “

His dad frowned, “Derek.”

Laura sighed, giving their mom a knowing look, “He’s totally lying. Some girl has been making him swoony mix CD’s. They’re adorable, the track listings alone read like bad love poems.”

His mom cooed and Derek’s face dropped, “Y-you’ve been looking, looking at my CD’s?”

Laura laughed, “Chill out, I just needed a highlighter from your bag and saw you’d appropriated my old CD wallet. It’s cute,” she turned to their mom, “he has like eleven in there.”

“Do we need to sit down again and talk about not sharing your secret with—“

“No!” 

“Paul,” his mom scolded, “he’s thirteen for gods sake. Why can’t he have a little normalcy in his life?”  

 “Because he doesn’t have a normal life. There are hunters in this town now, one of them with a daughter at Beacon Hills Middle School. It’s all very well for you to get on your hippy dippy high horse about wanting him to be a normal teenager but the sooner he realizes he isn’t one the better it will be for all of us,” his dad spat out.

Laura’s face dropped, a look of shame clouding her features, “Way to be intense Dad,” she said quietly.

He frowned, “Stay out of this Laura, this doesn’t concern you.”

Laura picked up her plate and said under her breath as she walked to the kitchen, “And you wonder why your seventeen year old daughter needs to be in therapy.”

His mom shook her head, standing with her plate in her hand, “Do you remember when you told me you were a father first and an Alpha second?” His dad just stared blankly at her. “No, I didn’t think so,” she laughed sadly before following Laura into the kitchen.

***

Derek was lying on his bed, earbuds in, volume on max listening to the latest CD Stiles had given him for what was probably the twentieth time that week when Laura jumped onto his bed, pulling out one of the earbuds and putting it in her own ear. 

“Awww, they don’t love you like I love you,” Laura cooed as Derek grabbed the earbud back off her, his face flooding with heat from embarrassment.

“It’s n-n-not not what you —“

“Derek, I’m just teasing you. I’m sorry that Dad went off at you because of what I said about you having a girlfriend, I thought I was doing you a favor… should’ve known there is no winning with Paul Hale.”

“How could you p-p-possibly think telling him I had a girl-girlfriend was a good idea?”

She cringed and pulled her legs up so her chin was resting on her knees, “I may have found more than your CDs when I was in your room the other day.”

Derek’s back stiffened and his stomach twisted up as he hissed out, “What?” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think…. I forget that you’re not really a kid anymore. When Mom gave you her old laptop I used look at your search terms because they were just so cute—“

“Cute?” Derek said through gritted teeth.

“Yeah like, ‘is Santa real in real life?’ and ‘how to make real spiderman web shooter’, it was just… I haven’t done it in forever. But I found the CDs and I guess I… I’m sorry. I was snooping, I knew I wasn’t going to find anything cute. I saw the ‘how do I know if I’m—’”

Derek’s face was burning and his heart was racing, “Stop,” he whispered harshly, eyes shooting to the door.

“Sorry,” Laura said as she let go of her legs and turned to Derek, holding his shaking his hand in hers, “I’m not trying to embarrass you Dere. I just want you to know that you can talk to me. I want you to know, whatever answer you found, I’m on your side.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Laura nodded, “Dad’s out with Uncle Peter, he can’t hear us.” Derek’s shoulders relaxed slightly, he looked out the window at the dark front yard, his Dad’s Camaro was gone from its usual spot. “You’re still really young, nobody knows who the hell they are when they’re thirteen. Do you like girls too?” Derek shook his head. “Not even a little bit?”

“Just wasn’t put together right I guess.”

Laura rolled her eyes, “You are so fucking dramatic. Do you think this boy, who has it so bad for you that he’s making you weekly romance mixes, wasn’t ‘put together right’ either?”

He shook his head, his face burning and heart racing, “No of course not, but he doesn’t have it bad— he’s just my friend.”

Laura laughed, “You’re an idiot. Would you make a girl a weekly mix CD full of romantically/sexually suggestive songs?”

He shot her a confused look, “Umm, n-n-no but…”

“I bet he draws your name in love hearts in the margin of his notebooks.” Laura nudged Derek with her shoulder, “Is he cute?”

Derek risked for the first time that night making eye contact with Laura and as much as he tried he couldn’t restrain the grin that was trying to take over his face, “Yeah, he’s beautiful. And he’s really smart, and funny…”

“Aww” Laura cooed, knocking her shoulder against Derek’s asked slyly, “do I know this dream boy?”

He looked at the door nervously, then shook his head, “Please don’t make me talk about this Laura,” he pleaded in a whisper. 

Laura smiled sympathetically before pinching Derek’s cheek as she stood, “Your secret is safe, but if you’re worried about Dad maybe try to be uhh, a little more, what’s the word he always uses?”

“Circumspect,” Derek answered.

“Yeah, browser history, learn to erase it. Keep anything you don’t want Dad seeing in your school bag… And uhh,” she waved her head from side to side a couple of times and bit her lip, before taking a deep breath, “maybe when you’re on the bench at lacrosse games, don’t act like you just got arrowed by a cartoon cupid.”

“Oh my god,” Derek groaned and hid his head in his hands.

“He’s CD guy?”

Derek didn’t look up, “I’m not having this conversation.”

“If it makes you feel better, he gets all clumsy when he talks to you.”

“He’s always clumsy.” Derek looked up at her with a scowl.

“Oh,” she said then grinned, “you should totally make him a CD. I could help?”

Derek groaned and threw his pillow at her, “Go away.”

 

***

“I’m running out of good songs to put on my summer vacation megamix for Derek,” Stiles sighed down the phone to Scott, who was laughing on the other end in amusement, “It’s not funny, this is a serious problem! I won’t see him for like two months probably, it has to be good.”

“It’s pretty funny dude, you’re totally freaking out about making a mix CD for a guy that doesn’t even talk to you. You never make CD’s for me.”

“Because you have all the same music that I do and Derek does too talk to me, just not when you guys are around.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you care so much.”

“I don’t care, he’s just cool. It’s not my fault that I’m the only one who’s noticed.”

“Lydia thinks you have a crush on him,” Scott said with a smile in his voice.

Stiles laughed, aware of the butterflies in his stomach that appeared every time he talked about Derek, “Lydia just thinks everyone is gay.”

“You do talk about Derek, like a lot though.”

“Doesn’t mean I wanna have seven minutes in heaven with the guy,” he said, stomach twisting at the words.

“Hey, he’s good looking dude, I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

Stiles sat up from his computer desk and started pacing the room before he squeezed his eyes shut and said quickly, “You wouldn’t think it was creepy if I maybe liked guys as well as girls?”

Scott laughed, “No. Are you kidding me man?”

“I totally don’t think of you like that in case you were worried or freaked out or whatever.”

“Dude, it’s okay. If it didn’t freak me out when I found out that Uncle Simon and Uncle Jeff weren’t actually blood related why would it bother me that my best friend is a dick man too?”

Stiles stopped pacing the room, “Gross Scott. Dick man?”

“So you don’t jerk off thinking about Derek’s dick?” he laughed.

Stiles blushed, grateful Scott couldn’t see him, “Shut up.”

“To be clear, you do have a major crush on Derek though right?”

Stiles threw himself backwards onto his bed and sighed, “Horrible and all consuming. My dad sent me to see Dr. Hale when I lost so much weight over lacrosse season—“

“His mom?”

Stiles nodded even though Scott couldn’t see him, then cringed at the memory, “It was so awkward. I couldn’t tell her that the thought of seeing her son for an extra four hours every week was enough to make my stomach knot so bad I couldn’t eat. She asked me all these questions, gave me an examination then she finally sat down with this knowing look, told me that sometimes when teenagers were in love they felt things in such an intense way that they might not even want to eat. And then, because my life sucks, Derek was doing his homework in the waiting room when I came out and saw his mom tell my dad that it wasn’t a stomach problem or the adderall but a girl that was the cause of my weight loss.”

“Oh my god, when was this?”

“About two weeks ago, my dad thinks it's hilarious to laugh at my pain. Keeps asking who the girl is.”

Scott laughed, “Man, so did Derek say anything to you about it afterwards?”

“I may have exaggerated slightly about the level of friendship between me and Derek.”

“So he actually doesn’t talk to you?”

“He doesn’t not talk to me. He’s just… you know. He gets nervous when he talks to people so I don’t wanna force him into conversations. Sometimes he’ll start talking and he just gets this look of panic in his eyes when he’s about to stutter. I know what it feels like, well, not the stuttering but the panic.”

“I remember your first day back at school after your mom died, when your dad didn’t pack you an apple like your mom always had. I actually thought you were going to die,” he said sadly, “you couldn’t breathe. Remember I tried sticking my inhaler in your mouth? Then Mrs. Jennings pulled me off you like she thought I was trying to attack you.”

“Yeah and then you made your mom pack an extra apple every day after that,” he laughed, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Derek before. I should have trusted you.”

“Stiles, bros for life, okay?”

“For li—“ He started then jumped as his dad threw open his door. His heart started pounding at first worried his dad had heard his conversation with Scott but it worry quickly turned to terror when he saw the look on his dad’s face. He knew that look, that was the ‘son, your mom won’t be coming home’ look.

“There’s been a fire at the Hale house,” his dad said, looking at the phone in Stiles hand, “Is that Scott? I’m going to need you to spend the night over there, there are reports of casualties, I don’t know how late I’ll be.”

Stiles dropped the phone, nodding at his dad’s retreating form, Scott called out loudly down the other end of the phone breaking him out of his shock. He picked up the phone again, heart racing, feeling like he was going to throw up, “I’ll call you later.”

The next ten minutes went by in a blur. Stiles didn’t feel connected to his body as he rode his bike through the streets of Beacon Hills towards Derek’s house on the edge of town. He’d never been to the Hale house before but like everyone in town, he knew where it was. There were fire trucks and paramedics blocking the entrance to the long driveway so he ditched his bike behind a tree and took off running through the woods that connected up to the back of the property. He could smell the smoke in the air, his stomach twisting as he got closer and heard the wails of a woman crying that synched up horribly to the sirens in the distance.

His body hurt from running but the adrenaline that coursed through him pushed his legs to keep going until he came into view of the giant house, raging with flames that illuminated the woods around the house. He stopped for a moment, stepping out of the light so not to be seen by his dad, and found himself paralyzed by the sight that was all too real and nothing like fires he’d seen on television. 

There was a rustling from behind him and when he turned to look at the source of the noise, he was thrown to the ground. He struggled to get loose, but claws dug into his shoulder and his arm, pinning him down. Whatever was holding him down growled. There were bright blue eyes staring down at him and as he adjusted to the low light he recognized fangs but despite that, the bumpy face hovering over him looked more human than animal. He screamed but his voice was drowned out by the sound of sirens and the voices coming from outside the house. His attacker jumped back as he continued to scream but before Stiles got a good look, it took off running toward the preserve on all fours like a dog.

He was still lying next to the tree heart racing, scared to move in case the creature came back when spotlights moved through the woods sometime later, his dad shining his flashlight on him, shaking his head before dropping down to his knees when he saw the gashes on his chest and arm, “Stiles, Jesus what happened to you?”

Stiles looked around and saw two of his dad’s deputies standing either side of his dad, then pulled himself up to sit against the tree, “I think I just got attacked by a werewolf.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A selection of songs from the many 'Better Than Silence' mix CDs from Stiles.


	2. Chapter 2

_Four years later_

 

Stiles sat with Lydia and Erica, two of his three best friends in the entire world, at the back of the field of Beacon Hills High. It was the coldest, greyest day of the winter but the chill in the air was a comfortable reminder of their deliberate estrangement from the rest of the seniors who sat in the heated loud cafeteria on the other side of the school. Only a heavy rain was ever enough to draw them away from the spot they’d chosen when it was merely somewhere to go to avoid the other kids, rather than what it had become, a place that was theirs. Sometimes a few stoners would walk past them on their way to the boundary of the school to smoke, or the track team would do laps past them, but nobody ever tried to join their group, to invade their space.

Stiles was watching Derek run laps around the track, Derek wasn’t on the track team so on days they didn’t have lunchtime practice he would always take their place, running without taking a break until the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. Unlike the track team who often waved or smiled at them during practice, Derek didn’t ever acknowledge Stiles and his friends. Derek didn’t acknowledge Stiles anytime though, it wasn’t exclusive to the track.

 It was strange to think that he and Derek had once been friends. That there was once a time when Stiles looked for Derek’s face first in a crowded room, a time before  Derek’s dad and uncle had died in the fire, before Derek had requested a new locker and started ignoring Stiles every time he tried to say hello. This was before Derek had lost the stutter and become the top lacrosse player in the first string, when Derek was still the quiet kid who always looked directly at Stiles in the eyes when he spoke to him, who sent chills down Stiles’ spine whenever Stiles had made him laugh. He was Stiles’ first love even if Derek never knew it. But that was a long time ago, now Stiles couldn’t get Derek to make eye contact with him across a room. Not that he ever tried anymore, nobody did and Derek seemed determined to keep it that way.

Lydia followed Stiles’ gaze to the track and shook her head, “Are you starting to freak out?”

“That’s a masterpiece of an understatement,” Stiles scoffed before dragging his eyes away from Derek and slumping down on to the grass in front of him, “just kill me now.”

“Maybe just focus on the awesomeness of Tahoe and all the hot babes you’ll meet on the chair lift,” Lydia said, looking down at the plait she was making in Erica’s hair, biting her lip before running her fingers through the plait to start again. 

Erica turned her head from where it lay in Lydia’s lap to look up at her, “I wish we were going to Tahoe for winter break.”

Stiles sighed with resignation, “You wanna take my place?”

“Come on, it’s kinda sweet your dad and Dr. Hale wanna include you guys in their honeymoon. Actually, no maybe it’s weird…”

He shook his head, “I don’t know if it’s physically possible to be in the same room with Derek for more than three-seconds without wanting to bang my head against a wall.”

“Babe,” Erica sat up, “he’s gonna be your brother, you’ve got more than three-seconds ahead of you regardless.”

“Don’t remind me, this is horrible,” he said burying his head in Erica’s shoulder. Her hair smelt nice, “Your hair smells like candy.”

“Hands off my girl Stilinski.”

Stiles winked at Lydia, throwing an arm around Erica and whispering loudly in her ear, “What do you say baby, wanna ditch red? You and—“ Erica pointed a finger toward her mouth and gagged, just as Lydia sat up tickling him to the ground. Stiles hoped Derek didn’t hear the girlish squeal escape from his mouth as Lydia’s hands moved from his ribs to his underarms, “Okay, uncle!”

“Your seduction technique needs work,” Lydia laughed before rolling off of Stiles to lie on her back, staring up at the clouds, “Look a unicorn.”

Erica lay down beside her, pressing her body close and whispering things in Lydia’s ear that Stiles couldn’t hear that made Lydia laugh. Scott came running across the field just as Stiles was beginning to feel like a third wheel, dropping down to sit on the grass between Stiles and the girls. “Heather was asking about you again,” he said with an eyebrow waggle, while unwrapping the sandwich he’d pulled from his bag.

Lydia leaned up on her elbows, raising an eyebrow dubiously, “Heather?”

Scott nodded his head, mouth still full of his sandwich, “Allison is trying to get us to double date with Heather and Stiles.”

“That could be fun,” Stiles said, his voice a little higher.

Erica snorted, but Lydia elbowed her softly before chiding, “Erica.“

“Fine,” Erica rolled her eyes, then looked at Stiles, “you know if you go on a date with Heather she’s gonna wanna make out with you at some point.”

“So?”

“You don’t like girls,” Erica said patronizingly. Scott had a pained look on his face and Stiles knew he was torn between wanting to agree with Erica and defend Stiles.

“I—“ Stiles started, then furrowed his brow, “I don’t not like girls.”

Lydia gave Erica a harsh look before turning to Stiles, “Babe, I think what Erica is trying to say is that, we get it. Well, Erica doesn’t get it because she came out of her mom’s vagina waving a rainbow flag—“

Stiles flinched at the word vagina causing Erica to sit up and point at Stiles, “See! You can’t even deal with hearing the word— you really think you’re gonna put your tongue down—“

Stiles’ face scrunched, horrified, “Ugh. Gross—that’s not like required though. I mean, not everyone does that… Right?”

Scott shrugged apologetically, “Kinda do it all the time.”

“Really?” 

Scott nodded with a goofy expression, “It’s pretty awesome.”

Erica grinned and held up her hand for Scott to high five, “Fuck yeah it is.”

“As I was saying,” Lydia said shaking her head disapprovingly at Erica, “you know it took me like two years of being proudly bi before I finally felt okay about admitting that I was a lesbian. I feel your feels man and you gotta know we’d all be on board the Stiles-is-bisexual train— but babe, you kinda have to be attracted to women for the bisexual thing to work.”

“I’ve had crushes on girls.”

Lydia shrugged, “I went out with Jackson for three years, still gay though. I’ve had plenty of crushes on guys, I don’t think you have to have sexual feelings toward someone to be fascinated enough to form a crush. Look at you two—“ she said pointing between Scott and Stiles, “biggest mutual crush ever— but you don’t want to fuck each other.”

 Stiles smirked, “So what you’re saying is I should fuck Scott to prove—“

Scott laughed at Stiles then looked back at Lydia, “I always forget about you and Jackson. I can’t even imagine you guys together now.”

“I don’t,” Erica said, running her fingers through the ends of Lydia’s hair, “you know I totally had a bisexual crisis over Derek Hale before Lydia.”

Lydia grinned, “Was that when Denise rented straight porn for you?”

“Uh huh,” she shuddered. “Thank god for lesbian parents. I probably would have ended up trying to sleep with him just to figure it out.”

“I didn’t know that you even knew him,” Stiles said.

Erica shrugged, “I didn’t really. He used to do his homework in the waiting room and you know Dr. Hale’s office is basically my second home. I used to sit across from him and admire his cheekbones. I guess I mostly liked him because he never asked me why I was always in seeing his mom, I mean obviously everyone knows I’m like epileptic girl but it never stopped people asking constantly. I kinda adored him for his silence.”

“And then you thought about his dick and freaked out,” Lydia added with a satisfied smirk.

“Pretty much,” she nodded, then grinned at Stiles when she noticed him shift uncomfortably, “dude, you totally have a boner from us talking about Derek’s cock huh?”

“You’re the worst,” he said shaking his head.

Scott touched his shoulder and looked at him with concern, “You’re not still into—“

“No,” Stiles shook his head emphatically, but Scott didn’t look convinced, “dude if I was gonna crush on a straight dude with the personality of cardboard again it would at least be Jackson.”

Lydia laughed at Stiles, “Jackson? Homeboy is not straight, you really have no gaydar at all do you?”

Scott’s eyes widened, “Jackson? Really?”

Erica and Lydia both nodded, before Erica said, “He and Danny are totally fucking.”

“Huh,” Scott nodded “How do you—“

“How do you not know that?” Lydia countered, “I’m pretty sure they even had a thing when we were still together. Not that he would ever admit it.”

“Ugh,” Stiles groaned, “I’m gonna die a virgin.”

“Poor baby,” Lydia pouted.

Scott shook his head, taking two apples out of his bag, giving one to Stiles like he had every day for the past ten years, “Well, I’m pretty sure Heather would gladly strip you of that title, she kept asking me all these leading questions about what we do in the weekends, where we hang out—“

“Sounds like she wants to bone you Scott,” Lydia said with a satisfied smirk.

“Allison was standing right there.”

“How is the queen bee?” Erica asked hotly.

Scott looked sheepish, “She’s not a queen bee or whatever. She’d just rather hang out with her own friends at lunch— ”

Erica smirked,“Instead of on the island of misfit toys.”

Scott laughed, “You’re just jealous because we’re not as codependent as you two.”

Lydia leaned over, kissing Erica, “I happen to like being in love with my best friend, thank you very much.”

Stiles sighed, nudging Scott, “See? Look what we coulda had if you weren’t so into breasts.”

“I really do like breasts.” Scott grinned, then he grimaced a few moments later, “So I didn’t really know what to say so I kinda told Heather we’d be at Jackson’s party tonight.”

Erica rolled her eyes, “Ugh, I give up.”

***

Laura was waiting in the car when Derek finally got out of school, she’d repossessed the Camaro while she was home from New York over winter break leaving Derek car free. “Took your time,” she sighed as he climbed in the passenger set.

“Sorry, coach called me in to talk, apparently I need to put in extra practice this week since we’ll be away over winter break.”

She shook her head, starting up the car that was once their dad’s early midlife crisis gift to himself, “It’s fucking ridiculous, you already put in what? Twenty hours a week?”

He shrugged, looking out the window, “I’m lucky Finstock is even letting me go. Greenberg got kicked off the team because he missed a week of practice.”

“So fucking stupid, I can’t wait for you to get out of this place.”

Derek sighed, looking at the high school in the side-view mirror as she turned on to the main road, “Yeah, me too.”

“I wish I could convince you to apply to NYU,” she said then started laughing, ”never gonna happen huh?”

Derek shook his head, “It has to be Stanford.”

 Laura smiled and squeezed his hand from across the seat, “Whatever you think is gonna make you happy Dere.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes, Laura tapping her fingers on the steering wheel and humming a song Derek didn’t recognize. “This is going to be weird isn’t it? Moving in to a new house with them.” 

“It would have been weirder if John and Stiles moved into the loft— or you guys moved into the Stilinski house.”

“What if Stiles finds out about me?“

She sighed, “Then he finds out.”

“Easy for you to—“

Laura pulled the car over and put the car into park, “Derek, stop. It’s not easy for me to say. You think it’s easy for me to see my little brother struggle with this? I hate that you’re alone with it. You don’t have to be though, you can let people in.”

“Laura,” he warned.

“No, look, I get it we can’t just go around announcing to the world that you’re a werewolf but people are more understanding than you give them credit for. John knows, Boyd knows, have either of them alerted the media? Treated you differently? Nobody is going to tell Stiles because it’s not our place to, but it’s not because we think he can’t handle it.”

Derek looked away from Laura at the passing traffic, “Yeah, as you said, it’s not your place.”

Laura made a frustrated noise, “Fine.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, the engine still running before she laughed, “fucking werewolves.”

He nodded, then turned to her, “Sometimes I wish Mom had never met Dad, that she’d married her high school boyfriend, Grant.“

“You wish Grant Ford, the drug dealer, was your dad?”

He shrugged, “He sold pot to high schoolers, still wins over werewolf.”

Laura turned to him, smiling, “Well I’m glad she didn’t, because you wouldn’t be you if she had.” She took the car out of park, turning back on to the main road, “Where am I dropping you again?”

“That suit store on Fourth.”

“I was just with Mom picking up my bridesmaid dress. I should have known better than to let her choose it before I flew in.”

He laughed, “Too sexy?”

She hit the steering wheel, “Yes! What is up with that? All the other girls were rolling their skirts trying to make them shorter in school and I was dragging mine down because Mom wore micro-mini’s in the early 80s.”

“Can’t be any worse than the time she bought me like a gallon of lube from Costco and then spent the next hour talking about how masturbation is a normal human function.”

Laura laughed, “Oh my god, I remember that. You refused to eat dinner with us for like a month after that.”

“It was a week. I stashed a lot of food under my bed… I’m gonna miss my room at the loft.”

“I’ll miss the loft too. This is going to be good for them though. We don’t really matter when it comes down to it. I mean, I’m already gone, you and Stiles only have, what six months left of high school? Then you’re out of here too.”

“My window doesn’t shut properly at the loft anyway,” Derek nodded.

Laura smiled widely at Derek before mussing his hair, “Atta boy.”

***

Derek was already at the store, laughing about something with Stiles’ dad when Stiles arrived for his suit fitting. His Dad had been officially seeing Talia Hale for almost two years, unofficially though it had probably been much longer, he didn’t really like to think about how long it had been going on for. Yet despite the fact that their parents were engaged, Stiles and Derek had managed to avoid having an actual conversation during this entire time.

“Almost gave up on you,” his dad grinned, walking toward Stiles and clapping him on the back.

Stiles pulled out his phone to check the time, “It’s seven minutes past four!”

Derek bit back a smirk and Stiles kinda wanted to punch him, “I’ve gotta get to the gym, you mind if I head off now John?”

Stiles’ dad smiled at Derek proudly, “You’re all done here.”

Stiles watched as Derek swaggered towards the door, then waited patiently as he held the door open for an old man in a wheelchair, what an asshole. Stiles’ dad laughed at Stiles’ look of disapproval, shoving him toward the changing room, “Derek is a good kid Stiles, you shouldn’t just write him off because you don’t approve of his taste in music and clothes.”

Stiles undressed, calling out over the changing door, “Way to think your son is completely shallow. No, Dad, he’s a complete asshole who blanks me on a daily basis. How long have you been engaged to Talia for? A year? I think in that time he’s said about three words to me.”

Stiles had the pants and the white shirt on, but his dad had the suit jacket on the other side of the door, “Very smart,” his dad nodded in approval when he stepped out of the changing room, passing Stiles the jacket, “Stiles, you ever think maybe Derek’s just shy?”

“Are you forgetting we used to be friends in middle school? He’s not so shy that he can’t, I don’t know acknowledge my existence.”

“Son there are things—“ his Dad took a deep breath, “just, cut him a bit of slack okay?”

“Sure, why not? I’ve already been making an ass out of myself in front of him for the past six years, what’s the rest of my life?” He said shrugging on the suit jacket, checking out his reflection in the full length mirror, “Hey not bad. Maybe I’ll meet a cute girl at the wedding and whisk her away in my dapper suit.”

“I thought Lydia was coming?”

Stiles eyebrows knitted together, “Yeah, with Erica.”

His dad considered this then nodded, “Just be careful.”

“Okay…” He said slowly, looking at his dad sideways as realization swept over him, “Wait— what?” He shook his head, “Hold on— do you think I wanna date Lydia and/or Erica? You get that they’re together right?”

“Together as in—“

“As in they’ve been planning their big lesbian wedding since tenth grade.”

“Huh,” his dad nodded.

Stiles laughed, “They’re not subtle with the love Dad, I’m genuinely concerned for your future as Sheriff of Beacon Hills County if this is an example of your deductive reasoning.”

“It’s called active ignorance of your child’s sex life. Try having a teenager without it.”

Stiles snorted, “I don’t have a sex life.”

His dad studied him for a moment, then hesitated before asking, “Not ever?”

He raised both his eyebrows and shook his head, “Not for a lack of trying.”

His dad clapped him on the back, “Nothing to be ashamed of.” 

“Says the man who was prom king.”

The shop assistant made his way across the room, nodding at Stiles, “Very natty. I don’t think you’ll even need adjustments unlike that hulking brother of yours, his upper arms my— ”

Stiles rolled his eyes, “I get it, he’s hot, I’m not.”

Stiles’ dad looked between Stiles and the shop assistant, whose mouth had dropped in embarrassment, “I didn’t mean to imply—“

Stiles nodded with resignation, “It’s fine,” before walking back into the changing room to get out of the suit.

When Stiles came back out a few minutes later the shop assistant had fled back behind the counter. His dad shook his head looking over at the shop assistant, “Poor guy, he was mortified.”

Stiles shrugged, “Guess that’s just one more thing I have to look forward to, actual comparisons to Derek.”

 His dad with a worried look gripped his upper arm, “Are you sure you’re okay with the wedding?“

Stiles pulled his dad in for a hug, “Come on, I’m just being a brat, ignore me. I’m happy for you. I’ve never seen you so happy before.”

“It’s been ten years but I still feel sometimes like I’m moving on too quickly.”

Stiles pulled back from the hug, gripping his dad on the shoulder, “You haven’t Dad and Talia’s awesome. I’ll try harder with monkey man.”

“Might wanna start with not calling him monkey man.”

***

Derek pushed his way through the crowd in the living room, towards the back patio of Jackson’s house. He hadn’t been to a school party since last time Laura was in town and forced him into pretending to be social. It was always easier to give in to her requests than to try to get her to understand that he really couldn’t relate to these people, that there wasn’t any point. He’d tried to talk to her about it once, but it had only made her cry.

“Oh my god, Derek Hale,” a blonde girl squealed, jumping up and wrapping her legs around his waist, it took a moment to realize it was Heather from his English class.

He smiled politely before lifting her back on to the ground, “Been drinking tonight huh?”

She giggled, “A little bit. Only enough to give me the nerve for me to tell you,” she leaned in and whispered in his ear, “I think you’re a hot babe.”

He could feel his face burn and wondered how red he looked. No matter how many of them he got, he still didn’t know how to take a compliment, so he smiled and deflected, “You’re much hotter.”

She grinned, twisting a long section of hair around her finger, “You wanna go for a walk?”

Derek’s throat tightened and his pulse started racing, again unsure of the right response. He quickly scanned the room behind where she stood, trying to formulate an excuse to get away from her, “I uhh—“

“Hey Heather,” Stiles smiled as he walked inside from the patio with a friendliness that reminded Derek of a time when Stiles used to smile at Derek like that.

“You came!” She grinned, focusing all her attention on Stiles, turning her back slightly to Derek, “I wasn’t sure you would since you’re not really friends with Jackson.”

“I’m not, but I’ve become very closely acquainted with his dad’s liquor cabinet.”

“You’re so funny,” she laughed, touching Stiles’ arm deliberately, completely ignoring the fact that only moments earlier she’d implied she wanted to go make out with Derek. Derek turned to leave when Stiles grabbed his wrist.

“Hey,” Stiles shot out before dropping Derek’s wrist like he thought he’d catch something from it. Stiles nodded his head a few times like he was trying to think of something to say to Derek before finally settling on, “So, you drinking?”

Derek shook his head, “Don’t drink.”

He didn’t miss the snort Stiles made, and the quiet, “Course you don’t.”

Derek’s jaw tightened as he leaned into Stiles, but Heather interrupted him before he had a chance to speak, “Since when are you guys friends?”

Stiles laughed throwing an arm around Derek’s shoulders, “Didn’t you hear Heather? We’re going to be brothers.”

Derek shrugged Stiles’ arm off from around his shoulders and headed toward the front door.

***

Heather frowned, “What’s his damage?”

Stiles shrugged, “I’ve been asking myself that for years.”

“So brothers huh?”

Stiles nodded, but was distracted by the slightly good looking older guy standing near the front door who kept looking over at them, “Who is that?”

Heather looked behind Stiles, her face hardening suddenly, “Motherfucker,” then she looked at Stiles sweetly, “wait here for me?”

Stiles nodded, taking a sip of his drink watching as she stormed over to the guy. She jammed him hard in the ribs with her finger, and he smirked, looking over at Stiles then back down at her. The guy started laughing before he finally walked out the front door. Heather grinned at Stiles from across the room before making her way back through the crowd, pulling him out through the side door of the house.

Stiles was following her through the back yard when he said, “So is that guy an ex or? He looks kinda old.”

She laughed, “No, just a family friend who really should know better than to hang around high school parties.”

The noise of the party was fading as they walked closer to the fence that backed on to the woods and Stiles suddenly wished there was more than two sips of whiskey left in his red cup. The nerves were building up, twisting his stomach, Erica’s words about how he would be expected to kiss Heather swimming around in his head. When Heather pushed the gate open Stiles drank down the rest of his drink before taking a slow breath and following her into the woods.

“I like it out here, don’t you?” She grinned, as she moved closer to him, pinning him against the tree he’d walked backwards into.

Stiles gulped, chanting to himself, ‘you can do this’ before wrapping his hand around the back of her head and leaning into her to kiss. She laughed for a moment before kissing him back, slowly, softly, lips thin and small against his. He couldn’t help think what a guys mouth would feel like in comparison. She ran her hands along his sides and sighed into the kiss, making Stiles feel self conscious about his lack of enthusiasm. Her hand snaked from his hip, down between their bodies, over his jeans but his dick was unresponsive. He moved his hand over her breast because that’s what people did willfully ignoring the pit in his stomach that tried to tell him how wrong it all felt. When she moaned like she was staring in a soft porn movie he pulled away, he must have been drunker than he realized because, for a moment, it looked like her eyes were red.

He closed his eyes, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

A twig on the ground snapped when she stepped back a little, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He opened his eyes again to face her, wincing at the words as they left his mouth, “It’s not you it’s me?”

She laughed cruelly, throwing her hands in the air, calling out behind her toward the woods, “You were right Deucalion.”

Stiles frowned, “Look I’m sorry. I thought I could but—“

“You’re a fag, I got it,” she said nastily, her demeanor unrecognizable from the one of the sweet girl in his math class. She started walking back towards the house, but Stiles ran after her.

“You shouldn’t be walking alone in the woods if you’ve been drinking,” he called out, trying to catch up.

She spun around, “I haven’t been drinking,” the ‘you fucking idiot’ was implied in her tone.

Stiles raised his finger to argue but dropped it again and let her walk away. He didn’t want to go back into the party, face Heather and her friends. He cringed at the thought of the inevitable humiliation that was to come from their loud whispers and sideways glances. The woods were dark but the moon was full, beads of light filtering through the trees, giving Stiles enough light to take the shortcut back to his street through the woods. 

He’d managed to avoid the woods at night for four years, his dad had never believed him about the werewolf and Stiles wasn’t sure if he even believed it himself anymore either; but whether it was a mountain lion or something that escaped from the set of Supernatural it didn’t change the fact that Stiles was still terrified of the woods. He looked back at Jackson’s house and debated one last time which fate was worse before choosing certain death and setting off through the woods. 

He knew it was just the product of his overactive imagination but as he walked he couldn’t help feeling like there were eyes on him. Halfway between his house and Jackson’s he gave up pretending he wasn’t scared shitless and started running, taking the first walkway he saw, feeling like a stupid child once he made it back onto the empty floodlit streets of Beacon Hills.

***

Derek was putting the last of his trophies into boxes when his mom stopped in the door way, “How you doing kid?”

“This was the last box. Guess I just gotta take this stuff down from the walls and it’ll be like I was never here.”

She smiled then walked into his room, sitting on the edge of his bed, “Are you happy Derek?”

Derek grabbed the masking tape, sealing up the box before he turned to his mom, “Of course.”

“You don’t have to lie to me.”

He shrugged, “Ms. Morrell says it’s a right of passage being slightly miserable when you’re a teenager.”

His mom laughed, “Well, this is true. I used to wear all black and chain-smoke in graveyards reading Sylvia Plath,” she fisted her hands and sighed dramatically, “so many feelings!”

 Derek shook his head, “How did you ever end up with Dad over Grant?”

“Don’t ya know that the bad girls always end up with the yuppy werewolves?”

He thought about how much happier his mom was now than she was with his dad, “You and John are a good fit.”

She grinned goofily, “We really are. I’m so in love that it’s kind of stupid.”

Derek stood in front of his mom, placing his hand on her shoulder, “It’s not stupid and hey, anyone who isn’t put off by your werewolf son has gotta be a keeper.”

She squeezed his hand on her shoulder, “Hey— stop that. Derek look at me,” he raised his gaze from his feet, looking into his mom’s eyes, “you are perfect. And if I have to tell you this every day of your life till you believe me I will. Your dad and I may have disagreed over a lot of things, but he was right when he said it was a gift. It’s not a curse Derek.”

His eyes darted away from hers and towards his half-open window, “Dad told me once that he’d tried to turn you but it didn’t work.”

She nodded her head, “It almost killed me. It’s why I wouldn’t let your dad turn Laura when she was a baby,” she seethed for a moment,”god he wanted to though.”

“I still don’t understand why Laura was born human and not me.”

“I don’t know either baby. Obviously it had something to do with my immunity but there aren’t exactly any werewolf obstetricians to give answers. All I know is that humans can’t have werewolf babies, the women are always turned first before a pregnancy otherwise the babies just don’t survive. I imagine it’s a lot like rhesus positive mothers with rhesus negative babies— “

“I’m not a doctor Mom, I don’t know what that means.”

She poked her tongue out at him, “It means that the antibodies in the mothers blood interpret the antibodies of the baby as an invader and fight the pregnancy like a virus. Honestly, we didn’t know my pregnancy was going to be any different, I thought being with your father meant never having children.”

“Shouldn’t you guys have told me this in werewolf 101 when I was thirteen?”

“Werewolf 101 was when you were fourteen,” she winked, “Werewolf 100 was when you were thirteen.”

“Mom.”

“Were you planning on breeding a human girl?” She sighed dramatically.

“No! Breeding, really Mom?”

“Well, then I don’t suppose you really needed to know how to successfully procreate when you were thirteen, did you?”

“Oh my god, did you not tell me this on purpose?”

She frowned, it was her guilty face, “No… Well… I may have been a little concerned about your mystery girlfriend and the possibility of you feeling like you were sexually invincible with her.”

“Sexually invincible,” he snorted, “you know I never had a girlfriend, right?”

“I figured it out,” She nodded, “You’d tell me if you met someone you were serious about, wouldn’t you?”

Derek pursed his lips and nodded, “I don’t think that—“ he started before nodding his head, “of course I’d tell you.”

She grinned, “So… anyone cute you might want to ask as your plus one to the wedding?”

Derek blushed, “You know I’m too busy with lacrosse and school to worry about girls.”

“I never said anything about girls.”

His mouth dropped and he felt the heat of the blush on his cheeks move down his neck, “I-I-I-“ he started, but the harder he tried to get the words out the faster the four years of speech therapy were unravelled. 

She gripped his wrist and shook her head, “It’s okay, don’t. I’m sorry for pushing,” she leaned her head back a groaned, “worst Mom ever, I’d totally understand if you want to sell me to the gypsies.”

He laughed nervously, heart still racing, “That’s offen-offensive to gypsies you know.”

She smiled, “I’m a quarter gypsy, I’m allowed.” She sighed as she stood, “I won’t bring it up again but let yourself have a little fun okay? You only get to be young once, werewolf or not, it’d be a shame to miss out.”

Derek looked at the Stanford pennant flags pinned above his bed before he began to pull them down, putting them carefully into the last empty box, “I’ll be young once I get in to Stanford.”

His mom picked up one of the flags from the box, her fingers running over the felt fabric, “You know, baby, your dad was there more than twenty years ago. The Alpha’s might not even still exist. What if you get there and—“

He shrugged, “Coudn’t be any more alone than I am now.”


	3. Chapter 3

The boys all filed into the locker room, most of them wet with sweat despite the eleven degree weather outside. Stiles slumped against his locker, looking across the room at Derek as he pulled his t-shirt off over his head revealing his unfairly overdeveloped abs. Scott opened his locker throwing his stick in before following Stiles’ gaze, raising an eyebrow in question.

Stiles shook the image of a shirtless Derek out of his head and looked back at Scott, “I think I have frostbite. Does it make any sense to you that we have to practice year round just so we can sit on the bench and watch guys like him play when it comes to spring season?” 

Derek looked over at him, catching his eye for a split second before quickly shutting his locker and heading to the shower. Scott shrugged, “At least we’re on the team.”

“We’re basically cheerleaders, very very sexy cheerleaders.”

Coach Finstock came barreling into the locker room, “Alright butterflies, before you flutter away for winter break today gather round. I’ve just got word from NorCal Elite, looks like the Braves have pulled out so as the top ranking high school team in the area we’ve been invited down to Palo Alto so they can kick our asses in front of all their fans.” Finstock grinned at the groans, “Aren’t you boys so excited? Winter break practice times have been officially doubled, no excuses, you’ll be here from six till eleven every day and because I’m such a great guy I’m gonna let you have Christmas and New Year’s Day off.”

Stiles rubbed the back of his neck, “We’ve got a family thing in Tahoe so—“

Finstock smiled, ”Sure, sure, well you just go ahead and live it up,” he pointed towards the hall, “there are kids out there who would kill for the chance to be in this team. I’m sure they’ll be happy to step in.”

“Coach,” Derek said loudly from behind Stiles, causing him to jump a little in surprise, “we’ve got the wedding tomorrow—“ 

Stiles looked behind him, Derek was standing there in just a towel, his face stiffer than usual, something Stiles had thought impossible. “Where’d you come from?” Derek all but ignored him, a tiny shrug of his shoulder the only acknowledgement that he’d heard Stiles. Finstock looked between Derek and Stiles with apparent consideration then waved his arm in the air in defeat.

“Hell we don’t stand a chance against a team of Derek Hale’s anyway. You two are excused for tomorrow’s practice, but no drinking Aunt Martha’s special punch— you’ll be here six sharp Sunday. Copacetic?” Both Stiles and Derek nodded as Finstock walked towards the door, calling out as he pushed it open, “and you’d better bring me cake.”

Stiles pulled off his shirt as he turned back to Derek, “So, who wants to break the news to the husband and wife to-be that we can’t go to Tahoe?”

Derek shrugged, avoiding eye contact with Stiles, “They’ll understand.”

“We could just qu—“

“They’ll understand,” he said, a little harder, before walking over to his locker.

“My new brother, gentlemen.”

Scott looked over at Derek, shaking his head, “He really doesn’t like you does he.”

“Hey! To be fair, he doesn’t like anyone. Try telling my dad that though, he thinks because I have three whole friends to Derek’s none that I’m the one who’s being an ass.”

Scott was still studying Derek, who was looking pointedly at the ground as he rushed through changing into his clothes, Scott’s mouth pursed before he said quietly, “He always looks so sad, I don’t know, I feel kinda bad for him dude.”

“Don’t,” Stiles felt a heaviness in the bottom of his throat, that he ignored, “he may be a total loner but he’s still the most popular guy in this school. Did you see him at Jackson’s party last weekend? I’m pretty sure every girl in school tried to climb him.”

Scott laughed, giving Stiles a knowing look, “You jealous of Derek or of the girls?”

Stiles’ face twisted, as he whispered, “Eww, dude. I’d rather round two with crazy Heather.” 

Derek’s locker slammed and he was gone from the room faster than Stiles’ eyes could trace. He frowned at Scott, “He didn’t hear us right?”

Scott looked across the room to where Derek’s locker was then shook his head and laughed, “Paranoid much?”

***

The rehearsal dinner was small, Boyd being the only non-relative at the table in the large Chinese restaurant. “Why did we think it was a good idea to move house and get married on the same weekend?” Derek’s mom sighed, resting her head on John’s shoulder.

He brought his arm around her back, pulling her in closer, “It’ll be fine, the worst is over, the packing is done and the movers have the rest covered.”

Stiles smiled at them from across the table, “Don’t worry Talia, me and muscles here will get everything else unpacked while you’re in Tahoe.”

Laura kicked Derek under the table so he sat up straight and added his own smile, “Yeah, what he said.”

His mom lifted her head from John’s shoulder, “You guys are the best. I could kill that coach of yours though. It’s ridiculous making high school kids train through break.”

“I hate to play devil’s advocate,” Boyd started, “but it’s pretty standard practice at schools with top sports teams. When I was in the water polo team at Beacon Hills we were state champions, we didn’t even get New Year’s Day off from five AM practice.”

“Thank god for the beer drinking, pizza eating, midday waking bliss of college,” Laura laughed holding her hand up for Boyd to high five,  

Stiles bounced in his seat pointing at Laura and Boyd, “That! I want pizza and beer and I don’t know about sleeping till midday because I’m not awesome at sleeping in. But I could at least get in some quality Xbox time in the morning instead of freezing my ass off on the lacrosse field at six.”

“Why do you even play?” Laura asked Stiles.

“Well technically I don’t,” he smirked.

John’s mouth turned up to one side as he looked over at Stiles, “Stiles had never shown an interest in sports until one day out of the blue he came home talking non-stop for hours about the wonders of lacrosse and begging me to buy him gear to join the team. Of course, he finally admitted months later that he wanted to play because he was in love— “

Laura cooed, “Awww little Stiles in love, that sounds adorable.”

Stiles blushed, “Thanks, Dad.”

“Pleasure, Son,” he winked.

“Who was she? I’m going to be your big sister tomorrow which means I’m legally allowed to sit on you until you talk so it’s probably best you just tell us all your embarrassing secrets now.”

Stiles looked down at his food and Derek heard Stiles’ heart beat faster, “It’s really not interesting. Just a stupid unrequited middle school crush.”

John took a sip from his beer, then turned to Laura, “He’d save up his allowance money to buy blank CDs then I’d hear him up in his room for hours every week making his mixes.” 

Derek suddenly felt like his heart was beating out of his chest. He hated the part of him that wanted so badly not to be misinterpreting, that wanted to believe he’d been the one that Stiles had loved. He wondered if Laura remembered the CDs he kept like trophies in his backpack and if she would make a connection. She must have remembered, they were one of the only things he still had left after the fire. Laura didn’t look at him with acknowledgement though, she was completely focussed on Stiles. He tried to study Stiles’ face, but he didn’t look Derek’s way either.

Laura threw her arm around Stiles who was sitting on the other side of her, “That’s terribly romantic Stiles. So did you win her middle school heart?”

Stiles glared at John for a moment before laughing, “No, my affection was not reciprocated. Pretty sure my sweet jams ended up in the trash.”

“I was in love with Cynthia Martin when I was thirteen,” Boyd grinned, “damn I hope she threw out the poems I wrote her.”

Laura laughed, “Cynthia Martin, seriously? She was the worst,” Laura turned to the others to explain, “she had the best hair, dated the top lacrosse player, was student body president and to this day is still the most evil person I’ve ever met.”

“Hey, I was thirteen. I didn’t know girls had to be wonderful as well as beautiful yet.” He said with his hands raised defensively. Laura grinned and nudged Boyd. He grabbed her hand, kissing it before entwining their fingers together.

“Cynthia Martin is actually my friend Lydia’s older sister,” Stiles said awkwardly.

John laughed pointedly, “Not to mention the object of Stiles’ middle school affection.”

Of course he hadn’t been the only one Stiles had made CD’s for. Derek tried to hide his unreasonable visible disappointment but it didn’t matter because no one was looking at Derek. 

Laura’s mouth dropped, “No,” she laughed, “god I always forget how small Beacon Hills is.”

“Is this the start of one of your ‘New York is so much better than Beacon Hills—“ Derek said.

Laura poked out her tongue, “Jealous.” She then turned to Stiles, “How about we don’t tell Lydia what I said about her sister?”

Stiles laughed, “No, she pretty much says the same thing. Cynthia wasn’t exactly supportive when Lydia came out. Ugh, she actually is evil. Told Lydia it was just a phase, that it was mind over matter. Lydia doesn’t speak to Cynthia outside of forced family holidays now.”

When Derek got home an hour later for his last night in the loft he pulled open the small box that sat near the window that was labelled, ‘misc stuff’ and took out the CD wallet. He pulled out the first CD in the wallet and slid it into his laptop. He hadn’t listened to the CD’s since the fire, they were from a time he couldn’t relate to anymore and hadn’t wanted to revisit. Except tonight he did. He laughed at the cruel irony when the TV on the Radio song _Wolf Like Me_ came on. Stiles could never have known at the time that the guy he made the CD for was a werewolf who would attack him on the first night of his transformation.

He felt sick at the memory of that night. He didn’t even remember at the time how he got from standing outside his burning house with his backpack still slung over his shoulder to running through the woods, feeling like his bones were trying to escape through his skin. His mind had been cloudy, barely able to connect to the fire burning his house to the ground but seeing Stiles standing in the woods had almost brought him back to himself. Not enough to stop him pouncing on Stiles, holding him to the ground, wanting to feel him against Stiles’ will. It was only Stiles’ screams and look of horror at Derek’s face that had made him realize what he was doing. He hadn’t lost control again since that first night, had done everything to stop becoming the monster that Stiles had looked on at with fear and disgust, but it would never change the fact that no matter how much control he had over himself he was still a monster at heart.

***

All of Stiles’ friends had left half an hour earlier and the only people who seemed to still be milling around the Beacon Hills Lodge were distant drunk relatives of Talia’s, a couple of the receptionists from her clinic and half of the sheriff’s department. Stiles’ dad and Talia were still slow dancing in the middle of the floor to Kanye and as amusing as it was to watch his dad slow dance to _Niggas in Paris,_ he’d already made a video on his phone. He walked outside, hoping to find Laura and Boyd at least to talk to but instead found Derek leaning up against the side wall near the service exit smoking a cigarette.

Derek looked up when he saw Stiles but didn’t acknowledge him in any other way. “You smoke?” Stiles spat out, his confusion overwhelming.

Derek shrugged before taking a drag on the cigarette, “No.”

“You’re smoking right now.”

It was dark out but Stiles could still see Derek roll his eyes at him, “Really?” 

“Okay whatever, I was just looking for your sister and—“

“They went back to Boyd’s parent’s house for the night.”

“Right— well, enjoy the cigarette you’re not smoking,” he said with a wave of his hand.

“My dad smoked,” Derek said quietly as Stiles turned to walk away. He stopped and turned to Derek, surprised at the admission. Derek stubbed out the cigarette underneath his shoe, “I don’t even like smoking.” 

Stiles nodded in understanding and took a careful step closer to Derek, “You know, it’s a shame you hate me so much. This hasn’t been easy for me either. I mean, obviously I’m really happy for my dad. But fuck, it’s just like, I thought death was as final as it got. Turns out it isn’t, moving on with life is the real finality.”

“I don’t hate you.”

Stiles leaned up against the wall a foot apart from where Derek stood. “I don’t hate you either.”

“Were your parents happy together?”

Stiles shrugged, “I think so. I was really young when my mom died, I don’t think they got a chance to reach the stage of discontent in their marriage.”

“My parents did. They weren’t happy, I think my mom wanted a divorce, I mean… I know she did. It was kind of hard for them to keep their arguments quiet. I think, the wedding— it’s not that my mom has moved on from my dad, it’s more that… I don’t know. A reminder he’s gone. That I need him but he’s gone.”

“I know,” Stiles nodded, “As I said, you totally picked the wrong guy to—“

“I don’t hate you.”

“Okay, to not-hate then.”

Derek shoved himself off from the wall, “You gonna head back in?”

“Think I might just slip out, head to La Casa Nueva, see if the movers managed to put my stuff into the right room.”

“Right. Well, I’ll— yeah I’ll just head back inside. See you at practice in the morning,” he said before walking quickly towards the front entrance.

Stiles ran after him, grabbing his arm, “Derek, you wanna ride to practice, since you know, we’re kinda living in the same house now?”

Derek frowned, studying Stiles for a moment then nodded, “Yeah, okay that would be cool.”

“Cool,” Stiles copied Derek’s nod, “cool, coo-el.”

“Right,” Derek said, then waved stiffly, “night.”

Stiles rushed to his car after Derek had made his way inside and phoned Lydia, “Dude. Where did you go?”

“Sorry baby boy, that bartender liked Erica a little too much, she is soused. Just put her to sleep and I’m now sitting down to re-watch season one of Party Down next to my drunk sleeping girlfriend.”

“I think I might not hate Derek anymore.”

“Well, that’s good right?”

“No.”

“Oh,” she breathed out slowly.

“I’m so pathetic. I caught him smoking a cigarette—“

“Really?”

“I know right? Then he strung a few sentences together and suddenly I’m thirteen again and wanting to send him cryptic love messages with mix CDs.”

Lydia laughed, “I don’t think they were so cryptic. Wasn’t your theme song Maps?” Then she sung dramatically, “ _Wait, they don’t love you like I love you_ —“

“Remind me why you’re my best friend?”

“Baby, it’ll be fine. You know how you’ve asked me to stop you when I think you’re being impulsive? Well, this is impulsive thinking. Knowing Derek he’ll probably go right back to being captain douche bag in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay you’re right. This is stupid. Horse cart duhness.”

“Crisis averted?”

“Probably, hang tomorrow night?”

“I’ll text you— just go home. Don’t think of Derek. Or do. I don’t know— just don’t tell me about it if it involves your dick.”

***

Derek let himself into the new house, the lights were on in the kitchen, but he’d given Stiles a half hour head start to get home, anything to avoid a potentially awkward ride home. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised when he was hit with the overwhelming scent of arousal coming from upstairs. Derek had learned to dull that sense somewhat over the past four years by focusing on other scents, he didn’t think he would have been able to look at his mom or sister in the face again if he hadn’t. But the new house smelt only like the faint whiff of the four movers and Stiles, there were no other scents to distract or to weaken the scent. His room was the one next to Stiles’, they picked them weeks ago when they’d first seen the house. Derek had chosen the room that was furthest from his mom’s because sometimes even noise canceling headphones weren’t enough and it wasn’t even the sex that was the worst part but the pillow talk that made Derek’s skin crawl. He hadn’t considered the fact at the time that the furthest from his mom meant the closest to Stiles, and his bedtime rituals.

Stiles was still jerking off as Derek finished making up his bed, and he was still going when Derek climbed underneath his comforter. Derek tried to sleep but the sound of Stiles’ hand slipping up and down his dick was making it impossible. He’d speed up till he was almost gasping, then he’d stop, wait a little then start stroking slowly again. Derek heard the sound of keys tapping occasionally but there was no audible sound so if he was watching porn it was muted. Derek skated his hand down along his erection, squeezing it once before rolling on to his stomach and pulling on his noise canceling headphones, he wasn’t going to do this. Derek was stronger than that.

The ride to practice the next morning was silent and safe. It was like their almost moment of bonding the night before hadn’t happened. About two minutes in from school Stiles said, apropos of nothing, “Sometimes I take bubble baths.”

“Uhhh…” 

“That’s one of the only things I remember about my mom. She’d take bubble baths, and always smelt like Cherry Blossom. I don’t like baths. I get bored after about two minutes, unless I— well and I can’t do that because it seems wrong. But I take them anyway and I probably smell like a—“

“You do.”

Stiles looked sideways at Derek, “I do?”

“You smell like that shop Bath and Body Works.”

Stiles laughed awkwardly, “You could at least pretend you didn’t notice.”

Derek shrugged, “I didn’t know it was supposed to be a bad thing.”

Stiles was blushing furiously, “I’m such an idiot. Why did I just tell you that?”

“Who am I gonna tell?” 

Stiles just nodded contemplatively but didn’t respond, pulling the car into the mostly empty lot. “Fuck,” Stiles groaned as Derek climbed out of the passenger side, “I forgot to pick up Scott. Tell Finstock we’re on our way?”

***

“So Lydia told me you were having middle school feels for Derek again,” Scott said as he climbed in the car.

Stiles knitted his brows, “How could you have possibly spoken to her since I did?”

“Late night Skype— totally not the point— I can’t believe you told her first!”

“You told her when you had sex with Allison before me.”

Scott pouted, “Fine. But next time tell me first—“

“Sure thing crazy, but there isn’t anything to tell. Literally all that happened is he spoke in sentences to me and as a result I spent an hour beating off to a video of him at the BHH swim meet last year.”

Stiles smirked at Scott’s twisted face as he said, “Okay, maybe it’s not so bad if you tell Lydia instead of me.”

“You don’t want to hear about how hot he looked with that water dripping down his abs, which are so fucking—“

Scott put his hands over his ears, laughing, “No. Like not at all. Ever.”

“I’m just fucking with you bro,” Stiles laughed, “I think maybe it’s time I actually, you know, put myself out there.”

“Like, date?”

Stiles shrugged, “I’d settle just for getting laid, maybe making out with a hot or at least decently average looking guy.”

“Not Derek though?”

Stiles frowned, “No, man. What? God.”

“It’s not that crazy. He hasn’t dated any girls, he could be ya know—“

Stiles shook his head, “Nah. He’s just got some definite monk-like purity vibes going on. Also, uhh, he’s my brother. And dude, even if he wasn’t he’s like the hottest guy I’ve ever actually seen, I can’t even get a paedo to buy me a drink in a gay bar let alone someone who looks like him to look at me.”

Scott sighed, “He is unfairly good looking. You know apparently the only reason Allison started coming to our games last year when she transferred was because she had a massive crush on Derek. Thank god he turned her down— like I could have ever competed with that guy.”

Stiles looked over at Scott as he pulled into the parking lot and grinned, “Nah, you’re a hot babe.”

Scott laughed, “Yeah?”

Stiles winked, “If I hadn’t known you since we were in diapers I’d have such a hard on for you.”

Scott flashed Stiles a satisfied grin, “Fuck yeah.”

Stiles threw his arm around Scott’s shoulders as they walked to the main building, “So, uhh, Allison actually made the moves on Derek?”

“You can never repeat this, but she tried to kiss him at a lacrosse party last year, she said he scowled at her and asked super harshly what she did that for. She’d die if she thought anyone knew though, she only told me after I told her the camcorder story.”

“You told her the— oh my god dude. Why would you do that!”

“I may have changed it so it was me instead of you.”

“You told Allison that you—“ Stiles starting laughing so hard he had to stop walking, “why would you even?”

Scott looked down a little, “She said she had a really embarrassing story and I wanted to make her feel comfortable,” then he laughed, “you gotta admit that your embarrassing stories kinda top like anything I could ever come up with.”

“Can’t believe you stole my story.”

“You can have it back if you ever decide to explain to your dad what you were actually looking at in the eyepiece.”

“I’m going to come out to my dad next year. It’s my New Year’s resolution.”

Scott dropped his lacrosse stick on the ground and pulled Stiles in close, “Good for you dude. Do you want me to be there with you?”

Scott’s arms were still wrapped around him tight, he nudged him off a little as he pulled back, “Easy tiger. I said next year, which technically gives me three hundred and sixty-five days once the ball drops to do it.” Scott looked a little like a kicked puppy, “Hey, but you know, when I do finally get up the nerve you’re my first call k?”

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter today due to life distractions. More soon though.
> 
> Also, thank you everyone for your awesome comments, I will get back to you as soon as I have more than one minute online xx

Derek’s mom and John had decided to stay in Beacon Hills for two extra days so the boys wouldn’t be alone for Christmas, before driving to Tahoe with Laura and Boyd for the rest of break. Stiles and Derek had gone from awkward silences peppered with stilted conversation on Christmas morning, to laughing about their middle school lacrosse coach by that same evening. 

“Do you guys have Mr. Harris?” Laura asked, handing Boyd a glass of eggnog.

Stiles groaned, “He pretty much goes out of his way to get me into detention on a weekly basis.”

Boyd laughed, “Sounds like Harris, I’m pretty sure he’s a pead.”

Derek pursed his lips and nodded, “There’s something off about him. Smells like dirt all the time,” Derek’s mom coughed from across the room, “I mean—“

For some reason Stiles jumped in, nodding his head also, “I’ve noticed in detention he sometimes has dirt under his nails, which is super weird, because he lives in those sad single people complexes over near Sabado that have no garden.”

Boyd narrowed his eyes in an exaggerated way, “How’d you know where he lives?”

Stiles dad looked over, hiding a smirk, “Yes Stiles, how do you know where Mr. Harris lives?”

“One failed prank—”

“Oh man, what did he do?” Laura asked John.

“Stiles and Scott thought it would be amusing to recreate a casual encounters post from craigslist that they’d heard on some podcast.” Stiles started grinning, but John just glared at him, “There is nothing funny about me having to talk your teacher out of pressing charges.”

“John man, we’re gonna need the story,” Boyd joined in.

“What was it, cinnamon and cum?” John said, causing Laura to spit out egg nog all over her jeans.

“Oh my god, John, did you just say—“

 Derek’s mom laughed but John shook his head clearly unimpressed with the memory, “It seems funny now, but it could have been really bad—“

Stiles sighed and threw up his hands, “Fine. So we put a craigslist post up with Mr. Harris’ number after he kept throwing me into detention. Said something like, ‘Name’s Adrian, I may act aloof but I love it when strangers talk dirty. Can you talk dirty enough to get me off on the phone?’”

Derek snorted at the thought of Mr. Harris getting dirty calls from strangers. Laura laughed, “Oh man— so what happened?”

“Well, we don’t know, because we never got to see our handiwork. So, a few weeks later Harris was being particularly douchey and I don’t know, we thought it would be funny to go next level. We put up another casual encounter with his address that said something like, ‘My wife is out of town so I’ve got a proposal. I’ll be wearing her panties in the kitchen baking cookies, you’ll let yourself in through the unlocked door and make me swallow your—“

“Stiles,” John warned.

Stiles raised his eyebrows at John, “What? It’s an integral part of the story. You don’t want me to front to the new family do you by using fancy euphemisms?” He turned back to the others, “Make me swallow your cock. I love the smell of cinnamon and cum. No games no drama.”

Boyd made a sound that was best described as a cackle, “Cinnamon and cum?”

“I swear to god it was taken from a real missed connection, but some guy showed up at Harris’ house and we got the blame. I mean— yeah sure we did it— but there was no possible way for Harris to connect us.”

Laura nodded her smile fading to a look of concern, “That… okay… really bad idea. Some woman was raped because of a missed connection set up—“

Stiles put his hands up in defense, “We were fourteen! Frontal cortex not fully developed. We honestly didn’t think anyone would show. Gotta say though, Harris is like one scary motherfuc—“

“Stiles.”

“The guy ran out of his apartment crying.”

“How do you—“ Laura started.

“Well, obviously Scott and I were hiding behind the trash bins outside the complex watching.” 

“And you wonder why Harris knew it was you?” Boyd laughed.

Stiles shook his head, “He didn’t see us, he never even came outside or went to his window. I mean, we ran the second the guy did. So unless Harris can see through solid objects…”

“And on that note,” John said slapping his hands on his legs as he stood, “if we leave now we’ll make it to Tahoe in time and I can pretend Stiles is responsible enough to be left alone for nine days.”

Laura grinned as Boyd pulled her to her feet, “Aww, he’ll have Dere-bear here to keep him out of trouble.”

“Lord, what fools these mortals be,” Stiles laughed to Derek, who just looked at Stiles with confusion. Then Stiles called out to the others who were throwing their travel bags over their shoulders at the front door, “Derek is planning a rager.”

“Okay well, have fun,” Derek’s mom grinned before leaning down and kissing Derek on the cheek, then whispering in his ear, “you’ll be fine honey.”

“Yeah we’ll be sure to lock up the priceless crystal egg before we invite the hookers over,” Derek said as he stood to walk everyone to the door.

Stiles looked at him sideways, almost like he’d forgotten Derek was in the room, before laughing, “Hidden depths D.” When everyone had finally left Stiles turned to Derek and wiggled his eyebrows, “Wanna play Call of Duty?”

Derek frowned for a moment, a little surprised at the question, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d played video games. “I don’t think I’m any good,” he said turning towards the stairs.

Stiles stopped him, hand on his arm, “We’ll start off easy.”

Derek looked down at the hand on his arm and then up at Stiles’ face. Derek heard Stiles’ heart beat a little faster so he nodded, following Stiles back down to the living room, wondering why Stiles’ heart was still beating too fast as he watched Stiles hook up the console. 

***

“So where’s your sexy brother?” Erica asked as she bit into her veggie burger, batting off Lydia’s greedy fry stealing fingers with her spare hand, “No, you need to order your own fries if you want fries.”

“But I don’t want my own fries, I just want yours,” Lydia pouted. Erica rolled her eyes before leaning over to kiss her, and pushing her plate closer to Lydia.

“So?” Erica looked at him.

Stiles shrugged, “We get along now, but we’re not like actual friends or anything. We’re more like roommates that tolerate each other and have topical conversations on the way to the kitchen about the weather.”

“Weather talk while you mentally undress him,” Lydia grinned as she popped another fry into her mouth.

Stiles pushed his empty plate away from him and rested his forehead on the table, “He’s so stupidly hot. I hate him. Why couldn’t my dad have married into an unattractive family? Can you even imagine all the dead kitties I’ve had to picture just so I’m not a walking boner at home this past week?”

Erica laughed, “You could always ask him to start wearing a shirt around the house.”

“Yeah but nah.”

“Because you need jack off material,” Lydia said calculatingly.

Stiles shrugged with a satisfied grin, “Hey, I’m only human.”

“Maybe he’s trying to get you all hot under the collar on purpose,” Erica said, mouthful of burger again.

Stiles shook his head, “No way, I walked into him coming out of the shower, I thought I was being super subtle with the eyes on the snail trail but I guess not subtle enough cause he got super jumpy and basically ran into his room to get away from me.”

“You still have your fake ID right?” Lydia asked, pulling out her phone and tapping something into it. Stiles nodded, “Perf, maybe it’s time we try Jungle again, find you a man to lust after that isn’t your probably-straight, definitely weird, actual step-brother.”

“Because it wasn’t humiliating enough last three times to be completely ignored by every guy in the club.”

Erica looked like she was considering it for a moment before she said, “Well you were seventeen then, you’re way hotter now.”

“Stiles you keep saying it’s time to put yourself out there, it’s not like you have a lot of other options unless you're gonna stop being so chickenshit and actually set up your grindr.”

“Tonight?”

“Why not right? Maybe you’ll even meet someone you can invite to my New Years party.”

“Since when are you having a party?” he asked.

Lydia held up her phone, “Since now.”

Erica laughed, leaning over to Lydia to kiss her, “Never underestimate my girl.”

 ***

Stiles was sitting in front of the big TV in the living room eating a bowl of popcorn and watching a movie when Derek got in from his afternoon run. “Ugh, stop ruining my childhood,” he groaned, throwing a kernel of popcorn at the screen.

“What’re you watching?” he asked, his head tilting toward the screen as he walked through the lounge toward the stairs.

Stiles shook his head, “Tinkerbell try to fuck Peter Pan.”

“What?” Derek asked shocked, moving on to the couch instead of continuing up the stairs. Julia Roberts was giving doe eyes to Robin Williams on screen. Derek laughed, lying back into the couch, “Asshole. This is _Hook._ I thought you were watching weird porn.”

Stiles smirked, “So that’s why you sat down? Does Derek Hale have a secret kinky side?”

Derek grabbed a handful of popcorn, throwing it into his mouth, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Derek heard Stiles’ heart speed up as he hesitated before laughing, “It’s all I think about man.”

“Knew it,” Derek tried to joke but it fell flat and left them both sitting next to each other on the couch in silence until Derek's heart beat had slowed enough to not feel so stupid talking to Stiles. “So, why are you watching this movie if you hate it so much?”

Stiles shrugged, “It was on and it used to be my favorite when I was a kid, Rufio! Rufio! Ru! Fi! Oh!”

“Fair enough, Rufio was a total bay— bad ass. I never really got why Robin Williams was in denial about being Peter Pan for so long though.”

“I know, right!” Stiles cried loudly, “I mean, a fairy fucking flies me to Neverland and tells me I’m Peter Pan, I’m gonna believe her.”

“So you wake up tomorrow in Neverland and you believe it?”

“Stranger things have happened,” he shrugged.

“Like?”

Stiles stretched his neck, studying Derek then turned to him, “When I was in middle school I saw a werewolf.”

Derek laughed, trying to cover his panic, “Uh huh.”

Stiles nodded in defeat, “My dad didn’t believe me either.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Derek not wanting to continue the werewolf conversation and Stiles clearly embarrassed about talking about werewolves being real. Derek cringed at Robin Williams acting like a kid on screen, “You’re right, he’s creepy.”

Stiles held up the remote, “ _Friends_ marathon?”

“I should shower."

Stiles nodded, “Right yeah of course, I’m uhh gonna head out soon anyway. Out on the town,” he said still nodding his head.

“Have fun,” he said with his back turned as he climbed the stairs. He knew he had no right to be jealous but it didn’t stop the twisting feeling in his gut when he thought of Stiles out meeting new people.

Not long after he’d hopped in the shower he heard Stiles’ door slam and the unmistakable and now familiar sound of Stiles jerking off. His dick was hard but he wasn’t going to touch it not when he knew how easy it would be for him to come with the sound of Stiles drifting through the walls, he was already enough of a freak without needing to add to that by jerking off to the sound of his step-brother.

***

“This is embarrassing,” Stiles moaned into his drink, slumping further into the booth at the club.

Scott flashed a smile, bumping his shoulder against Stiles, “It’s still early.”

“Like it matters, I’m at a gay bar and my straight best friend and the lesbians are getting more attention than me. I’m invisible. Yet again.”

“Maybe all the guys think you’re my straight best friend?”

Stiles looked Scott up and down, “Your shirts are tight as fuck.”

Scott laughed, tugging at Stiles’s shirt, “Maybe you just need to ditch the flannel so everyone knows you’re, you know,” he waggled his eyebrows, “one of the team?”

Stiles looked down at his shirt considering for a moment then shook his head, “It’s not me man,” then he sighed, “this was a stupid idea. I’m not gonna meet a guy in a gay bar. What is this music even? Can you really see me making out with someone who likes getting sweaty to trance?”

Scott laughed, “Nope.”

“You wanna ditch this gin joint?” 

“Totally, but uhh,” Scott looked over at Erica and Lydia dancing, surrounded by a group of guys, “mind if I have a little dance first?”

Stiles laughed then stood, “Knock yourself out dude, I need to pee first anyway.”

The line was long for the bathroom and the two guys pressed up against the wall next to him kissing only made him feel worse about his complete failure at the club. When another couple sandwiched him in between the first he gave up waiting in the line and headed out through the back exit to the alley. He peed behind a dumpster in the alley and was zipping his jeans back up when he heard the side door slam shut and footsteps behind him.

He turned quickly and came face to face with an older guy who laughed and put up his hands in defense, “Sorry, didn’t know anyone was out here—”

Stiles looked at the man’s face, it was familiar but he couldn’t quite place him, “Don’t I know you?”

The man shook his head, “I don’t think so.”

Stiles tilted his head, “No, I do— you were at Jackson’s party, you know Heather.”

The man smirked, “Oh yes, I remember you now. Heather had her eye on your if I’m not mistaken,” he tilted his head toward the club, “but I’m thinking things perhaps didn’t turn out well in her favor?”

Stiles nodded awkwardly, “Not so much.”

The man stepped into his space, running his hand along Stiles’s arm, “Too bad for Heather, can’t pretend I’m disappointed though.”

Stiles looks down at the hand and gulps nervously, “Oh?”

The man laughed pulling Stiles flush against his body, his hand moving up along Stiles’ neck and into his hair. Stiles was frozen in place, the man was good looking, hot even but he was easily twice Stiles’ age leaving him torn between wanting to get off and wanting to run. But when the man kissed him he didn’t pull away. His mouth tasted like cigarettes and Stiles thought suddenly of Derek, with his sad eyes and the mouth Stiles wanted to kiss. He couldn’t ever kiss Derek though so instead he let his tongue slip into the man’s mouth further, testing it out, trying to distract himself from thoughts of his step-brother.

The man gripped Stiles tight, pushing him against the brick wall behind the dumpster then kissing down Stiles’ neck, his hands drifting lower to Stiles’ belt, “Oh god, this is really hot and I don’t want to stop you but I think I have to because I can’t have my first time with a stranger in an alleyway.”

The man pulled off of Stiles neck and laughed, “I don’t want to deflower you, just kiss you, is it okay if I kiss you?”

Stiles sighed, “So creepy, I really should care more,” he said as he wrapped his hand around the man’s head pulling him in closer again to kiss.


	5. Chapter 5

All morning at lacrosse Stiles had been acting shifty, jumpy even. Derek hadn’t exactly earned the right to ask Stiles if he was feeling okay but he was about a minute from crossing the room to do so when Scott cornered Stiles in the locker room after practice and asked Stiles what wrong. 

“I don’t know dude, I think someone slipped something in my drink, I don’t even remember how I got home last night.”

“You think?” Scott said sarcastically, “Lydia drove you. We found you in the alley like an hour after you said you were gonna piss.”

“Jesus Christ, what if I was ra—“

“Wouldn’t you be able to feel it?”

Stiles wiggled his ass a moment, then nodded, “Right yeah, definitely all good in the underhood. Fuck, all I remember is that the lines were long for the bathroom and slipping outside to take a leak. Then I woke up this morning with monkey man glaring at me over my bed telling me we were gonna be late for practice.”

“Thought you were gonna stop calling him monkey man?”

“Jocko Homo?”

Scott laughed, shaking his head, “How about dream boat?”

Derek dropped his lacrosse stick and Stiles winced, looking over at Derek unexpectedly before slapping Scott with the back of his hand, “Not in public, ass.”

Scott looked over at Derek, who was making a point to look busy, then shook his head with a grin as he turned back to Stiles, “Maybe you guys just need to make out, ease the tension.”

“Lydia has officially taken your top spot as best friend.”

Scott laughed, “You sure? Lydia invited him to her New Year’s Eve party tonight.”

Stiles let out a hard breath, “I hate you both.”

“Don’t worry, she said he just kinda stared at her then nodded. He won’t show. Shame though, we’re gonna play spin the bottle.”

“Dude, you remember he’s my brother right?”

“Step brother.”

“And he’s totally weird.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one.” 

“It’s one thing to entertain thoughts of tapping that ass in the privacy of my bedroom, it doesn’t mean I would ever even for a moment want to do anything about it.”

Scott laughed, “Not even during an innocent game of spin the bottle?”

“Erica. Erica is officially my new best friend,” Stiles sighed loudly, as he slammed his locker shut, walking past Derek without making eye contact as he headed toward the door.

Scott hesitated a moment then followed Stiles, stopping in front of Derek on his way out, grinning shyly, “See you tonight?”

Derek was still processing the conversation he’d overheard so he just nodded dumbly. Stiles wanted to make out with him? Or not make out with him as it seemed, but he’d thought about it? The fuck?

***

Stiles felt all wrong in his skin, or maybe it was for the first time ever he felt all right in his skin. He couldn’t decide which, but all he knew was he felt different. His first and strongest theory was that he’d bumped his head and was now suffering from a concussion that made all noises sound way too fucking loud and all scents smell too strong. Because seriously, since when could he smell ants? The only problem with his theory was he had no bumps on his head, not even any scratches and he could have sworn he had a wicked bruise on his leg the day earlier from when Jackson had slammed his lacrosse stick into him at practice. 

His concussion theory lasted until about three o’clock that same afternoon when after two hours on Web MD he somehow heard Derek walk into his room next door, unzip his pants loudly before he heard the unmistakable janky preamble of gay porn loudly through the walls.

“Who’s going to top today?” A man asked.

“Flip you for it?” Asked a younger sounding man.

Stiles stopped breathing for a moment, well at least that possibly answered the question Stiles had carried with him for years about Derek. Sure, it didn’t mean Derek was gay, even Scott had watched gay porn once to see if he was into it— but considering the time it had taken Derek from closing his door to having porn playing, Stiles figured the clip he was watching had to have been bookmarked. Not even Stiles could find porn that quickly and he was pretty much a gay porn pundit. No, this wasn’t an experimental first time with gay porn, he was sure of that much. He walked closer to the dividing wall, the familiar sound of a tube being squeezed then a palm on wet skin, too loud to explain away with his current concussion theory. 

He was frozen in place, emotions oscillating from anger at Derek for flaunting his loud porn, to being totally turned on by it then being confused about why he felt like he could hear Derek’s heart beating through the wall. This was some Edgar Allan Poe, Twilight Zone kinda shit and as much as he claimed to believe in the paranormal, he also kind of didn’t. There had to be an explanation that didn’t involve a curse or witches, he just hadn’t been able find one on the internet.

“Derek, stop,” he whispered to himself as he clenched his fist. His heart raced, matching the other sound of a heart beating, but then the video was paused and he heard shuffling. There was no way Derek could have heard him whisper, but he slunk down behind his desk to hide anyway, despite the fact that Derek couldn’t see him. He didn’t move, scared but without logical reason to be. Stiles let out a heavy breath he didn’t realize he was holding when Derek started up the video again what felt like ten minutes later.

Derek skipped forward on the video, the uncomfortable dialogue replaced with the what had to be third act fucking. Derek’s hand slapped against his dick, fast and constant. There was no teasing or drawing it out, Derek was clearly determined to come as quickly as possible. The thought of Derek being so turned on had made Stiles impossibly hard. He slipped his hand into his pants, his search to find the answers to why he was losing his mind put on hold with the need to come suddenly overwhelming. He leaned back against the wall as he slid his pants down around his hips, freeing his leaking cock. 

The moans and skin slapping of the porn were drowned out by the sound of Derek’s loud breathing as Stiles tugged quickly on his foreskin. It was over in moments for Stiles, and he cried out shocked by the orgasm that felt like it came out of nowhere.

“Jesus, fuck,” he heard Derek hiss out through the wall, the sound of Derek’s laptop crashing to the floor breaking him from his post-orgasm daze. 

His face was burning as he cleaned himself off with the dirty t-shirt lying on the floor in front of him then zipped himself up humiliated by the creep he had become. Even if the aural show had been unintentional, he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that what he had done was extremely gross. He had become the kind of guy people told amusing anecdotes about, like the guy in Allison’s story where she woke up one night at summer camp with one of the counsellors jerking off over her bed. 

He didn’t wait for his chance to make a fool out of himself in front of Derek. He grabbed his car keys and ran down the stairs, taking two at a time, but instead of stopping at the Jeep he kept running and running, not slowing down until he was lost in the thick of the Beacon Hills Preserve. 

***

Derek was lifting weights in the now almost empty gym when a guy he didn’t recognized sauntered up behind him, nodding appreciatively to Derek’s reflection in the large mirror, “Impressive.”

Derek looked over his shoulder at the guy, who looked to be in his thirties. He never knew what to say when guys tried picking him up at the gym, it happened a lot these days, and despite the small thrill, it usually made him feel more uncomfortable than flattered. He nodded his head for lack of a better response then turned back to face the mirror.

The guy laughed, then leaned closer behind Derek, whispering so quietly that if it weren’t for Derek’s less-than-human hearing he doubted he would have been able to hear it, “You’re either incredibly stupid, or just really good at faking it.”

Derek stood and turned around to face the guy, tilting his head menacingly, “You sure you picked the right guy to start a fight with?”

The guy laughed again, leaning back on the shoulder press behind him casually, “Oh, I’ve got the right guy alright.”

“You don’t.“ Derek said, his eyes narrowing on the man’s tight lipped smile.

“Derek Hale? The boy who would have been king.”

Derek grabbed his gym bag from the floor, throwing his towel around his neck, “I don’t know what you’re taking about,” he said as he turned and walked towards the exit. The guy laughed again, following him out through the lobby and into the car park. Derek turned when he got to his car, the guy hot on his heels, “Back. Off.”

The guy took a step closer, forcing Derek backwards against the hood of his Camaro, the guys eyes flashed red, “I don’t think I will.”

“You’re a werewolf?”

“Ding ding ding, you really have no self-awareness do you? I could sense you from a block away,” he smirked, jumping on the hood next to where Derek stood, “name’s Deucalion. I didn’t believe Heather when she said you couldn’t spot other werewolves, figured you were just that skilled at feigning ignorance, you are a Hale after all. But it seems Miss Misery got something right for a change.”

Derek took a step back from the car and turned to face the man, “Heather? As in—“

Deucalion rolled his eyes and groaned, “Yes, as in the hot new transfer to Beacon Hills High, christ, are we going to do this all night?”

“What do you want?”

“What do you know about the Alpha pack?”

“What do you know?”

The guy shook his head and said coldly, “‘I’m the one asking the questions here.”

Derek shrugged, “That they started out as a secret werewolf society in the 1920s at Stanford and only Alphas and second-in-line Betas could join.”

“And?”

“I don’t know anything else. That’s all my dad told me, he was in the Alpha pack before he moved back to Beacon Hills.”

Deucalion smiled, “He wasn’t just in the Alpha pack, he was the leader, well he was until he refused to give the bite to his human daughter. The other Alpha’s felt he was weakening the pack, that he didn’t deserve to be the leader if he was unwilling to risk the child’s life to make her a werewolf, better dead than human.”

“How do you—“ 

 “Well, I was only nineteen at the time, had only been an Alpha for a few months when your Dad came to me. Said he would give me the pack if I agreed the Alpha’s would leave the Hale’s alone,” he laughed, “you should have seen the brawl amongst the older Alpha’s after he made me leader, but what were they going to do? Only your dad had the power to strip me of my place.”

Derek frowned, “So you’re the leader of the Alpha pack?”

Deucalion shook his head, “Not anymore, but I will be again once I kill Peter Hale.”

“Kill…” Derek took a step back and shook his head, “y-you’re crazy.”

Deucalion laughed, “Very possibly, but that’s really here nor there. Your uncle killed your father and stole what was rightfully yours. You should be the—“

Derek shook his head, “My uncle died in the same fire as my dad.”

Deucalion studied Derek for a moment, “No, your uncle killed your father and set the fire to cover it up.”

“You’re lying,” Derek whispered.

Deucalion tilted his head, “You know that I’m not.”

Derek concentrated on the steady beat of Deucalion’s heart, hoping to hear the betrayal in the rhythm but he couldn’t find it. He shook his head again, taking another step back from the car, “No, all that proves is you can control your heartbeat.”

Deucalion grinned, “You ever ask yourself why you didn’t become an Alpha when you were next in line? You should have become Alpha the moment your dad’s heart stopped beating.” 

Derek shrugged, “I don’t know all the rules— maybe—“

Deucalion sighed loudly and jumped off the hood of Derek’s car wrapping his hand around the back of Derek’s neck in one quick move and digging his nails into Derek’s flesh. Derek stumbled back on to the ground, flashes of memories that weren’t his filling his head. He saw Peter, walking into an old library that had books stacked to the ceiling, grinning as he told the pack he was an Alpha now. Then in another flash he saw Peter overpower Deucalion on a dark street, the bodies of Deucalion’s Beta’s littering the alleyway behind where he lay. Another flash was of Stiles looking awkward sipping on a drink from across the room at Jackson’s party, Deucalion was talking to Heather telling her to give up, that it was clear that he’d have a better chance at seducing Stiles than her. Then he saw Deucalion following Stiles from a close distance through the Preserve, watching as Stiles looked around the dark woods nervously before taking off in a sprint out towards the main road. The last one was barely a fragment, showing Deucalion watching Stiles at a club. Stiles looked out of place as he sipped his drink, trying but failing to catch the eye of various men on the dance floor, oh…

Derek pulled himself to his feet, staring at the smug look on Deucalion’s face as Deucalion spoke, “Your uncle is alive and he’s an Alpha. Think about it Derek, there are only two ways to become an Alpha and we both know Peter wasn’t ever in line to become an Alpha.”

“Why were you following Stiles?”

Deucalion smirked, “Saw that did you?”

Derek stepped forward so he was looking down on Deucalion, “Why were you following Stiles?”

“For the exact reason you’re asking me about him instead of Peter.”

 There was no way Deucalion could know how he felt about Stiles, nobody knew. Derek gulped, conscious of the fact that Deucalion could hear his pulse racing, threatening to betray his secret. “You’re wrong.”

Deucalion shook his head, “Derek, your mom’s engagement to the Sheriff was big news, their wedding even bigger in this pathetically boring town. Don’t patronize me and try to pretend he isn’t your step-brother.”

“My step-brother,” Derek repeated with a nod, trying to hide the flood of relief.

“Look, don’t take it personally, I wasn’t sure you weren’t working with Peter. You can’t blame a guy for wanting a little insurance.”

“What did you do to him?” 

“Don’t worry Derek, I haven’t hurt him,” he said before adding with a grin, “yet and I won’t if you play ball. Tell me Derek, do you play well with others?”

 ***

Stiles was pulling his t-shirt over his head, changing for Lydia’s New Years Eve party when Derek walked through his open door and sat down on his bed.

“Uhhh, can I help you?” Stiles asked, confused by Derek’s casual presence in his room.

Derek shrugged, his eyes scanning Stiles curiously, “Just wondering what time we should leave.”

“For?”

“The party,” he said, like it pained him to do so, “Lydia said I could get a ride with you, but uhh, I could…”

Stiles frowned, “You want to go to Lydia’s party?” he asked slowly. Derek nodded, “You know it’s just gonna be like five of us there, right?”

Derek nodded, “That’s fine.”

“And we’ll be drinking.”

“I know.”

“Right.” Stiles looked at Derek strangely as he picked up his phone from his desk and slid it into his back pocket, “I was gonna head over there now.”

Derek nodded stiffly and stood behind Stiles, “Great.”

Stiles managed to avoid sitting near Derek or making eye contact until almost eleven when Lydia cornered him in the kitchen and said, “I invited Derek so you could get over your stupid middle school feud and subsequent weirdness not so Erica could spend half the night talking to the only guy she’s ever had a crush on.”

Stiles huffed, taking a long drink from the bottle of wine he was now working on finishing, “Erica doesn’t like Derek.”

Lydia grabbed the bottle from Stiles and looked at it, “She could do! I thought you were drinking red wine?”

Stiles wrapped his fingers back around the bottle and took another sip, “Finished it, now I’m on the white, although I’m pretty sure my Dad swapped out the wine from the house with non-alcoholic. This is doing shit all. And shut up, she doesn’t want him.”

Lydia sighed, “Well, duh.” She leaned back and called out to Scott who was taking a beer from the fridge, “Didn’t work.”

Scott shut the fridge door, opening his beer with his back teeth, “Told you. Should have gone with Allison.”

“I can’t take anyone seriously who abuses their teeth like that,” Lydia said to Scott.

Scott grinned, “It’s a metaphor, see. You put the drinking thing between your teeth but you don't give it the power to break them.”

“You're officially banned from reading. Use a bottle opener, we have four of them.”

Scott stuck his tongue out at Lydia before taking a drink of his beer, “And miss watching your horrified face?” He turned to Stiles, “Tell Lydia you would have stepped in if you thought Derek was talking to Allison.”

“You guys are ridiculous. Me and Derek don’t have to be best friends. There is no feud. It’s fine.” 

Lydia smirked, “We don’t want you to be best friends.”

“Dude hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night.”

Stiles frowned, “Really?”

Lydia rolled her eyes, “Yeah, which you’d know if you hadn’t been making a point to sit with your back to him all night.”

Stiles drank down the rest of his bottle of wine and set it on the countertop next to him, “I can’t. Weird things happened this afternoon that I prefer to never talk about or think about again, but as a result I basically can never look at him ever again.”

Scott laughed, “He catch you jerking off to his photo?”

Stiles sighed, “He didn’t catch me.”

Lydia and Scott both laughed before Lydia picked up the empty wine bottle, “Guys are so gross.” She threw her arm around Stiles’ shoulder, “Come on, time for Spin the Bottle.”

“I don’t want to make out with you guys,” Stiles said as they walked toward the kitchen door.

“Well, you’ll just have to make sure the bottle lands on Derek every time then,” Scott grinned, throwing his arm around Stiles’ other side.

“Derek’s not gonna agree to—“ Stiles started before walking straight into Derek as he exited the bathroom.

“Agree to?” 

Lydia smiled widely, taking her arm from around Stiles’ shoulder and threading it through Derek’s arm, “We’re gonna play spin the bottle, you’re not gonna leave instead of playing with us, are you Derek?”

Stiles snuck a look at Derek who looked mortified, but instead of making the expected excuses so he could leave he just nodded his head, “I, uhhh, s-sure. I mean, I’ll play.”

Lydia walked Derek ahead of them through into the living room, turning to wink at Stiles as she lead Derek down to the floor to sit. “Fuck, I’m going to need actual alcohol if you guys are gonna make me do this, can I steal one of your beers?” Stiles asked Scott.

Scott clapped Stiles on the back, “I don’t know how you’re not paralytic right now,” he reached into his back pocket and handed Stiles a flask, “want this instead? I took it from my Dad over Christmas, but it smells weird. I think it’s Southern Comfort.”

Stiles opened the cap and took a drink, “You are a beautiful man, Scott.”

***

Derek was way out of his league but he was determined not to leave Stiles’ side. Not while Deucalion was out there making thinly veiled threats against Stiles. He didn’t know what the man was capable of but no matter what it was Stiles didn’t deserve it, it wasn’t his fault that his dad had married into their messed up family.

He’d sat there and watched Scott and Erica make out drunkenly for the ten-second ruled kiss, then Allison and Lydia, then Erica and Lydia, who had to be broken apart after about a minute. Derek could hear Stiles’ heart beat speed up as he nervously spun the bottle, his sigh of relief audible when it landed on Scott.

“I expect to be wowed,” Stiles grinned as he leaned over the circle to kiss Scott.

“Are you sure? I might ruin you for all other guys,” Scott said, wiggling his eyebrows.

Allison laughed, but then Stiles gave her and Scott a pained look before she clapped her hand over her mouth as she looked over at Derek.

Derek looked between them confused before Stiles sighed loudly and turned to Derek, “Yes, I’m gay. No, my dad doesn’t know and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible. Is this going to be a problem?”

Derek’s mouth gaped open a little, he’d considered the fact that maybe Stiles was into guys after his jerk off comments to Scott in the locker room and seeing him at a gay bar in Deucalion’s memory but he couldn’t exactly admit to knowing about either of these things. “No,” he said, voice a little shaky, “that’s fine. I won’t tell John.”

Stiles studied him for a moment before nodding his head, then he turned back to Scott, wrapped his hand around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. Derek didn’t like seeing Stiles kiss Scott. Allison apparently loved it though because as soon as they pulled apart she climbed into Scott’s lap and kissed him, “God that was hot. Can you guys make out all the time?”

“I think I’d rather make out with you,” Scott laughed.

Stiles lifted his flask up, “Amen to that,” before taking another long pull from the flask. Then after shaking the hip flask a little said, “Dude, why am I not drunk?”

“You always think you’re not drunk even when you’re barfing up your stomach lining into my mom’s koi pond,” Lydia said.

“Okay, that was one time. But I actually mean it now, I could drive to Nebraska right now I’m so sober.”

Erica grabbed Stiles’ flask and sniffed it, “Yeah, uhh calling bullshit on the sober thing dude,” then she turned and grinned at Derek, “your turn to spin.”

Derek knew before he’d even let go of the bottle that it would land on Stiles, it seemed impossible that it would land on anyone else, so when it landed dead in front of Stiles he feigned casual surprise before leaning over to kiss Stiles.

He was wrapping his hand around the back of Stiles’ neck when Stiles shook his head, “Dude, you really want to do this? You don’t have to you know, we’re not going to make you leave if you don’t play the game.”

Derek looked into Stiles’ eyes, heard Stiles’ heart beating faster than it had all night before shaking his head and bringing his lips down to close over Stiles’ mouth. Stiles pulled back a moment, then muttered, “Fuck it,” and bit Derek’s bottom lip softly. Derek kissed Stiles’ top lip, pretending in that moment that this wasn’t part of a game, that Stiles wanted him and that this was something he was allowed to have. Lips met lips, tongues kept safely in mouths, but Derek wanted more. Derek wanted to swipe his tongue along Stiles’, wanted to press him down into the turkish rug they were sitting on and run his hands along Stiles’ body.

“Time,” Erica called out with a laugh. Stiles pulled away roughly, forcing Derek’s hold around the back of his neck away. Stiles kept his head down as he stood and ran out of the room. 

“Fuck,” Lydia hissed and stood to follow him but Erica grabbed her arm and shook her head.

“Just give him a minute, he’ll be fine.”

“I’ll—“ Derek started as he stood, but didn’t finish as he ran after Stiles who had shut himself in the guest bathroom.

***

There was turned on, and then there was this, whatever this was. Stiles stood leaning over the pedestal sink, staring into the mirror at the beast in front of him. His eyes were glowing purple, his teeth extended, ears pointed and overgrown lamb-chops covered each side of the face that couldn’t even grow much more than peach fuzz. He gripped the sink, then at the loud cracking sound he looked down at his hands but instead of hands he saw what looked more like paws, hairy with long claws extending, holding the slightly fractured porcelain basin. There was banging on the door, but he couldn’t answer it, he’d seen this movie, it never ended well for the worried friend.

“Stiles,” he heard Derek call out then without waiting for a response opened the door and walked into the bathroom.

“Jesus christ,” Stiles whispered as he hid his face, crouching down over the sink. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

Derek walked up behind him, resting his hand on the back of Stiles’ neck, “I’m sorry. I should have just—“

“No. It’s not—“ 

“Are you sick?” 

“You need to get out of here Derek,” Stiles hissed but Derek didn’t listen and pulled him up to standing with both hands around his shoulders.

Stiles caught his reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t of the monster but the same averagely average reflection he’d seen every morning when he looked in the mirror. “We should, we should talk.”

Stiles turned to Derek, “I think Scott’s hip flask was spiked with acid.”

Derek looked him over carefully before tilting his head shyly, “S-so the kiss?”

Stiles laughed, “Is that why you followed? Keen for round two?”

Derek’s eyes widened, “N-No!”

“I’m just fucking with you— I know you would never…”

“Right,” Derek said awkwardly as he nodded his head.

But Stiles didn’t believe him. Blame it on the acid or the day from hell but Stiles felt like he could almost smell the want from Derek coming off of him in waves. Wrapping his arms around Derek wasn’t the smartest thing he ever did. Kissing Derek was definitely the stupidest thing he’d ever done, but clearly Derek was just as stupid as he was because his only reaction was to grab Stiles’ hips and press him into the pedestal behind him, his tongue making it’s way into Stiles’ mouth.

Years of hatred forgotten with tongues clashing and lips moving. Stiles shoved his hand into Derek’s pants, too lost in the moment to consider the repercussions, pulling at the slippery foreskin of Derek’s cock. Derek stopped kissing him, throwing his head back with a moan before unzipping Stiles’ jeans and grabbing his painfully hard dick. 

“Fucking hell,” Stiles laughed as Derek’s hand moved relentlessly up and down the head of his dick before leaning back in and kissing him again. Stiles hadn’t had a hand on his dick other than his own before but he was aware, as his orgasm built, that he was going to come at an embarrassingly quick speed. They stopped kissing, mouths resting against each other as Stiles came with a rush on to Derek’s hand, Derek following a moment later.

Derek leaned back in, kissing Stiles softly before stepping back, giving Stiles space to zip his pants back up. “We just did that.”

“Yup,” Stiles laughed awkwardly as he turned and rinsed his hand in the sink. Derek leaned over him, washing up as well then stalling as he stood too close behind Stiles.

“Sorry,” he whispered as he stood back quickly.

Stiles turned, grabbing Derek’s hand and placing it over his jeans-clad erection and let out an awkward, “Don’t be.”

Derek ran his hand along the erection for a moment then coughed and stepped back, “I guess we should,” he tilted his head to the door.


	6. Chapter 6

Derek should have held back after Stiles walked out of the bathroom but that was a plan that a man whose eyes weren’t magnetically glued to Stiles’ ass would come up with. It occurred to him that he should have done this the moment they came out into the hall and ran straight into Jackson and Danny walking through the front door. Jackson looked between Stiles and Derek with a shit eating grin, Derek was trying to think of a good story but Stiles just shrugged and said, “I had to hold his hair while he barfed,” before walking off, not sparing another glance at either Derek or Jackson. 

“Barf huh?” Jackson’s grin morphed into an assessing purse of lips. He leaned into Derek like he was going to sniff him causing Derek jerk backwards and bolt into the living room. Lydia had decided they should play truth or dare instead of spin the bottle because of what she assumed was a dramatic fall out from the previous game. Jackson had been dared to recreate the Vanilla Ice dance from youtube step by step, which gave Derek a moment to freak the hell out and take stock of the horribly stupid thing he’d just done with Stiles in the bathroom. It wasn’t enough he’d broken his pledge to himself not to get involved with humans, but he’d done it with the only person he’d ever really loved outside of his family, or that had at least been outside his family until a week and a half ago. Jesus Christ, Derek had jerked off his step-brother. He would have been halfway home already if he thought Stiles would be safe from Deucalion. 

“Alright, Stiles,” Allison said with a grin, “truth or dare?”

Stiles closed his eyes and leaned his head back, “Fuck. Pass?”

“Truth it is,” her eyes gleaming with mischief, “tell me the real camcorder story.”

“What?” Scott spluttered indignantly.

Allison nudged Scott with her shoulder, “Oh please, I know it didn’t happen to you.”

“Busted,” Lydia laughed.

Stiles cringed, “A thing happened with a camcorder. Scott’s turn. Truth or—“

“No, no, no… whole story,” Allison grinned.

“Fine, so I was fourteen? Scott and I had been staying with his Uncle Jerome and his boyfriend in Sacramento. Obviously we found their porn. We decided to watch it because, well, I wanted to watch gay porn and Scott thought he should at least try to see if he was into it. Scott wasn’t, but I was, big time. I had my mom’s old camcorder with me so I had the genius idea to film the porn so I had a copy. So, a few weeks later I’m home alone after school and decide to watch the movie. Thing is, the camcorder was from like, the nineties and the only way to watch playback is through the viewfinder. So I’m leaned over watching it, uhhh… doing stuff…”

“He was touching his penis,” Scott explained to Allison who rolled her eyes and slapped him playfully on the arm.

“Thanks for the visual,” Jackson sneered, to which Erica responded with a stage whisper, “Are we still pretending Jackson’s straight?”

Jackson plastered on his trademark smug grin, “Thinking about Stiles’ penis enough to turn any guy straight.”

“Hey! I won’t finish if you’re going to try to penis shame me.”

Allison smiled and in a tone reserved for talking about puppies and rainbows said with a smile, “I’m sure Stiles has a lovely penis.”

Derek wondered if it was possible they were all reading his mind and decided the best way to torture him would be to continue to have this conversation about Stiles’ dick until he broke down in tears while confessing that he wanted Stiles’ dick and Derek’s mouth to be best friends forever. Thank god Scott saved him from this probable fate with a nod of his head and the earnest admission, “It’s probably the best one I’ve ever seen, apart from my own of course.”

“Not weird at all Scott,” Stiles cringed, “anyway… So I’ve got the camcorder on my desk, one eye closed, the other over the viewfinder, headphones plugged into it for the full experience. So, I uhh, finish my business. Pull the headphones out, sit up… and there’s a fucking sandwich on the desk next to me.”

“Wait, wait, you gotta tell her the best part,” Scott said through drunken tears.

“It was when my room was still a Harry Potter shrine,” Stiles made eye contact with Derek who was trying really hard to keep it together and not think about Stiles jerking off in full color, “the camera was pointed at a poster of Dobby. My dad thinks I’m sexually aroused by Dobby.”

Derek squinted at Stiles. “Wait— what?” 

”Oh my god, is that why you gave me all those posters and the Slytherin jacket freshman year?” Lydia asked.

“My dad was worried about my Harry Potter ‘obsession’, not that he ever brought up the camcorder thing and it’s not like I was ever gonna be like ‘hey dad remember that time you caught me— I was actually watching gay porn… and while we’re on the subject…’”

Scott grinned and threw his arm around Stiles’ shoulder, “You’re gonna have to tell him you like dudes one day.”

Stiles nudged Scott’s arm off from his shoulder and held up his finger, “Maybe not. It’s highly likely there will be a zombie apocalypse before I ever get a boyfriend, so why deal with the torture of my dad almost having a heart attack over the news, then joining PFLAG out of guilt because he heart attack, then spending the rest of his life giving me pamphlets on safe but enjoyable sex and forwarding me every single news article on LGBT rights with an inspirational note above each one—”

“You really don’t get enough credit for how crazy you are,” Erica said.

“Oh you know he would,” he responded, then poked out his tongue at her.

Derek nodded, “I get it,” he said quietly, “not wanting to disappoint your parents, even though you know in theory that they’d accept you.”

“Got something you wanna share with the class?” Jackson asked with a predatory grin but Danny nudged him and whispered something that was probably _shut up you dick_.

Derek must not have looked as freaked out by the question as he felt because Jackson noticeably winced when Derek responded with a cool, “No.”

Danny smiled politely, putting his hand on Jackson’s leg, “Sorry, Jackson lives in a world where everyone is gay until proven straight.”

Erica laughed at that, “Yeah, it’s called Earth.”

“Well as fun as this aggressive little BHHS GSA reunion is, I’ve got a bottle of Jaeger in the kitchen,” Lydia said, jumping up from the floor clearly trying to diffuse the awkward conversation, “who wants to do shots?” 

Everyone stood and headed towards the kitchen but Stiles grabbed Derek’s arm, holding him back a minute, “You okay?” Derek nodded then smiled, maybe a little too widely but he didn’t want Stiles to think that Jackson had actually gotten to him, “Do you maybe wanna get out of here?”

“Now? You sure?”

Stiles closed his eyes for a moment and nodded his head, “Yeah, now.” Stiles looked towards the french doors that led to the backyard and sighed loudly, “Wait for me out front, I’ll just go explain to them that you’ve got explosive diarrhea and need to leave—“

Derek smiled for a moment then frowned, “I don’t have explosive—“

Stiles grinned and shook his head, “And this is why you’re waiting outside while I tell lies.”

“Does it have to be explosive?” 

“It’s like you’ve learned nothing from TV, the more uncomfortable a story makes people feel the less likely they are to question it.”

Derek nodded. He looked through the door at the others laughing outside, “And we don’t want them to question it?”  

Stiles looked down at his feet, then ran his hand through his hair, “I just… my friends know about me obviously and after all that whatever that was with Jackson, I just assumed, you don’t want them to know about us, right?” He asked softly, the assuredness he’d had a moment earlier was gone.

“Us? You want to… Oh.“

“I’m an idiot,” Stiles said, face crumbling.

“It’s n-not a good idea.“

Stiles cringed and closed his eyes before dropping the hand he realized was still holding on to Derek’s arm, “I’m going to—” He opened his eyes, looked at Derek then nodded his head as he waved sloppily at the kitchen door, “Yeah, I’m just going to go— somewhere that’s not here and try to pretend I didn’t just proposition my step-brother.”

Derek stood, frozen in place, watching as Stiles hesitated for a moment, his face flat and devoid of emotion before he walked into the kitchen. Derek wanted to chase after him, he needed to explain, say something, anything but what was he going to say? ‘I’ve been in love with you since I was thirteen but that didn’t stop me from attacking you the night of the fire, yeah that was me, btw I’m a werewolf and you’re making it really hard for me to stay away from you.’  Derek’s stomach knotted up and he felt like he was going to throw up. He could feel the bile rising up in his throat as he thought about how he could never tell Stiles. He ran to the bathroom, and sank his knees to the floor, fighting back tears that threatened to escape with every heave.

***

Stiles stumbled into the kitchen, but no one noticed him, all the couples too wrapped up in each other to notice the heartbroken idiot standing behind them. He stole a glance through the door behind him, hoping that Derek had come after him but the living room was empty. He realized he was about two seconds from crying in front of his friends which would definitely get their attention, so he turned and grabbing his jacket he slipped out the front door. The tears came the second his feet hit the sidewalk so he started to run, it was three blocks to the new house and he didn’t stop until he could see his house. He heard footsteps, and then felt nails ripping into his arm from behind. He turned and saw his assailant, a blonde woman with blue mottled face paint. _Great, of course I get attacked by the worlds worst Mystique cosplayer on a bender_ , he thought before she lunged at him again. He managed to tackle her to the ground. She grinned at him, her toothy smile distorting into a fanged snarl as she pushed back and took control, holding Stiles underneath her. He struggled to get free but she was stronger than him, her nails, no… claws dug sharp holes into his arms.

“That’s not face paint,” he said to himself as realization dawned.

She rolled her eyes at him, “Very astute.” She loosened her grip on him slightly, sniffed at his neck then, tilted her head to look at him, “Well this is interesting.”

Stiles heard the creak of floorboards coming from the front porch of his house, the woman looked up at the sound and he tried to crane his head to see what she was looking at but all he saw was a shadowed figure standing near the doorway. “Kate darling, what did we say about dry humping teenagers?” 

She stood, hauling Stiles up by his shirt, “Oh you’re gonna want to meet this plot twist.”

“I should warn you before you dismember me that my dad is Sheriff, and he is quite fond of me.” 

The woman, Kate was it? Licked his neck, then grinned, “He’s not the only one fond of you, is he?”

“Oh my god, did you just lick me?” 

She only laughed as she dragged him up the path to the front porch, he finally saw the man’s face, he was familiar, but not familiar enough for Stiles to be able to place him. The man smirked, shaking his head at her, then looked at Stiles and said, “Cats, am I right?” Stiles struggled against Kate but she was too strong, the man put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, “We’re not going to dismember you Stiles, we just want to talk.”

The man smiled and moved in for what Stiles thought was an inappropriate attempt at a hug until he felt claws dig into his neck.

Stiles opened his mouth to scream but the man put his free hand over his mouth gently, “Shh, this won’t take long and then it will be like it never happened.”

Stiles didn’t know why he didn’t scream or run, maybe it just felt pointless or maybe he believed the crazy man and scary cat monster lady but either way the man was pulling his hand away from Stiles’ neck, wiping the blood from his overly long nails on his jeans. Kate must have let go of his arms without his noticing as there was nothing holding him back as he raised his left hand to the back of his neck and felt the wounds the man had inflicted upon him close up underneath his fingertips. He should have been surprised, but after a day of uncanny bullshit being clawed by a werewolf then miraculously healing just seemed like the inevitable next step, wait, _what?_

“You’re a werewolf.”

“You’re insane,” The man seemed angry but when Stiles frowned and backed away he laughed and threw his arm around Stiles, “I’m fucking with you, of course I’m a werewolf. I’m Peter and you’ve met my lovely wife Kate.”

She raised her hand to his face, forcing Stiles to watch as her claws shot out from her fingers, ”Now that we’re done with formalities how about we just cut the crap, tell us you who your Alpha is.”

 “I’m in high school. I guess I might go greek when I get to college next year but I never really saw myself as—“

Kate grabbed him by the neck, pushing him up against the front door, “Don’t be deliberately obtuse, it’s not cute.”

Stiles knew. He didn’t know the how or why or even when, but it wasn’t the first time he’d lied to himself and deliberately ignored every sign pointing to an obvious self truth. It wasn’t the first time he had to come out to himself before he could come out to others. He thought about the past day, the heightened sense of smell, hearing, the raging hormones, the ridiculous’ acid’ in the hipflask theory, the flashing eyes, the inability to get drunk no matter how much he had, and oh yeah, the self healing wound. Peter held his gaze from across the front porch, “I don’t know who turned me,” he admitted. 

Kate kept her grip on Stiles’ neck as she turned to Peter who nodded in confirmation, “He’s telling the truth.” Stiles frowned and opened his mouth to ask how he knew but Peter just held up his hand and extended his claws, “Alpha party trick, they’re like pointy telepathic USB sticks. I can read your memories or transfer mine, but some Alpha’s prefer to just—“

“Delete them,” Stiles finished.

Kate softened the grip on Stiles’ neck but didn’t let go, “Deucalion followed us here.”

Peter nodded, “He’ll be looking for Stiles.”

“When you say he’ll be looking for me, you mean so he can start my Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts classes right?”

“Deucalion gets his power from killing his Betas,” Peter said.

Kate looked way too pleased with herself as she moved the hand from Stiles throat to pat his shoulder condescendingly, “But don’t worry, he likes to exploit the bond to the full extent before he drains your life force.”

“So what plus side is I don’t die a virgin?”

Peter sighed loudly, “No Stiles. Without our help he will use you as his weapon,” he then looked Stiles up and down before adding, “but yes knowing Deucalion I’m sure he’ll want to get a leg up before he has you murder the people you love the most.”

Kate took her hand off Stiles’ shoulder, “Do you remember when Deucalion was highly discriminating about who he gave the gift to?” 

Peter smiled, rubbing his index finger over his mouth in thought, “He still is.”

Kate nodded in understanding before letting her blue features morph into those of a very human-like white woman. “I know you.”

***

“Hey do you know where Stiles— Woah,“ Scott said as he walked through the open bathroom door, “you alright buddy?”

Derek wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and stood up, giving Scott a small nod as he made his way to the sink to wash up. “I should probably go,” he whispered, throat hoarse from throwing up.

Scott shook his head, “You know I’m not going to let you drive home right?”

“I’m fine, really, I haven’t been drinking.”

“Yeah right,” he grinned, “and Stiles didn’t drink my entire hip flask either. Actually, do you know where he is?”

“He’s not in the kitchen?”

Scott looked at Derek like he was an idiot, “No, that’s why I was in here looking for him.”

“Maybe he went outside.”

Scott frowned, “He’s not out there, and he’s not answering his phone either.”

“Stiles?” Lydia called out from upstairs, then leaned down from the top of the bannister, “He’s not up here.”

Jackson looked bored as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen, “Oh no, Princess Sparklehorse Stilinski is lost.”

Lydia pouted as she grabbed her jacket from the bottom of the stairs, “Aww is someone sad that no one loves him enough to leave a party to see if he’s okay?”

“He can’t have gone too far,” Scott said as he opened the front door to leave. 

Derek heard Danny say, “I’d leave a party for you,” as he followed Lydia and Scott outside.

There was no sign of Stiles outside, Scott grabbed Derek’s arm as they walked up the long driveway, “What happened?”

“I upset him.“

Lydia and Scott both nodded with what seemed to be understanding. Stiles wasn’t out on the street. Derek might not have mastered the art of being a werewolf yet but he knew he could find Stiles a lot faster if he could only lose the others, “This isn’t your problem, you guys should go have your party, I’ll find him.“

Scott turned to him, it looked like he was going to say something but instead he just shook his head, shooting Derek a dirty look before walking away towards the top of the street. Lydia caught up with Scott, leaving Derek a few paces behind and linked her arm in his, “This is my fault, it was stupid to invite Derek,” Lydia said.

“I’m standing right behind you,” Derek coughed.

Lydia looked over her shoulder, “Yes. I’m aware.” Derek’s face fell at her comment but she just rolled her eyes in response, “Get over it, we’re the assholes who made our friend play spin the bottle with his hot step-brother — oh you are too so don’t even try to look scandalized—“ 

“In our defense he’s the one who started giving Stiles Derek eyes again what else were we supposed to think?“ Scott asked.

Derek frowned, “Derek eyes?”

“Also known as the ‘I only have eyes for you glare’”

Lydia nodded like whatever they were talking about was the most obvious thing in the world, then added, “But mostly, ‘I’m angry with you because you gave me a boner.'” 

“I don’t—“ Derek started.

“Whatever,” Lydia waved her hand in the air dismissively, “that’s between you and your closet.”

Scott just laughed drunkenly and repeated Lydia’s words, “Angry boners.”

Derek sputtered, “I don’t get angry because he gives me a boner!”

“Oh my god,” Scott turned to Derek and grinned then stopped walking for a second so Derek could catch up, “but he does give you boners?”

“I’m not having this conversation with you,” Derek snapped as they reached the end of the street, “which way is he more likely to take, Geary or Old Preserve Road?” 


End file.
